Arcreus III: Rapture
by DarkSideOfTheMoon19
Summary: Peace can kill...
1. What Has Passed

**A/N: On with the new Arcreus story, for those of you who aren't familiar with this story, read the previous two instalments in this series, 'Messiah' and 'Leviathan'. Please remember to review after reading each chapter so I can see your feedback.**

_23__rd __October 3166- 4 days after resurrection:_

_Theodore Arcreus arrives in Soleanna, and heads into the New Town area and rents a room in a cheap motel. It is reported that Arcreus gave the owner $30,000 to ignore anything that would happen in his room. The money is from an undefined source._

_15th November 3166- 23 days after resurrection:_

_Theo Arcreus hires a group of infamous mercenaries known as The Destructix, to detonate several roadside bombs throughout several areas within Soleanna, presumably to stir up the police force and military, although his true agenda was unknown._

_21st November 3166- 29 days after resurrection: _

_More bombs are detonated throughout the city, killing 28 people; after each attack, a message was left behind, scratched into the walls and pavement; DUKE THERIAS XI MUST DIE._

_25th December 3166- 43 days after resurrection:_

_Arcreus now has an estimated following of over 60 people, mostly ex-mercenaries and vigilantes. The Cathedral of Soleanna, which was packed with worshippers, was destroyed by Theo himself, armed with his mutated powers and his scythe both of which were given to him by Dimitri, Knuckles' ancestor. The same message DUKE THERIAS XI MUST DIE was written by Arcreus in the dead people's blood._

_19th June 3167- 8 months after resurrection: _

_Theo Arcreus now has contacts though the lower ranks of the Soleannan Government. A plot is being made for the assassination of Duke Therias XI, which involves Arcreus and other government officals._

_14th August 3167-10 months after resurrection:_

_Disguised as a guard, Theo enters the Soleanna castle and kills the duke by pinning him down with his demonic tendrils and performing a vivisection on him, and strewing his blood and entrails on the floor in grotesque patterns. Power was offered to Theo, but he declined, demanding instead that the government gives him $100,000 to set up his own private detective agency specialising in supernatural cases. The government accepts his offer._

_3rd October 3167- 11 months after resurrection:_

_Duke Perias II is placed in power, Arcreus now has some influence over the government and the decisions made, but he mainly doesn't intervene in the governments affairs. The rich areas of Soleanna are now being vandalised, with numerous assault and arson attacks being carried out, unknown to the government, these attacks were orchestrated by Theo Arcreus along with the local Mafia, Theo claims these attacks on the rich are due to the fact that the rich take no interest in the affairs of the poor._

_24th October 3167- 1 year after resurrection:_

_Theos business 'Demons Bane' opens in downtown Soleanna, the riots still continue in the rich areas of Soleanna, Soleanna goes into lockdown due to the riots, the government goes into seclusion, apparently to come up with a solution to the riots but actually, because Theo 'advised' them to._

_30th June 3168- 1 ½ years after resurrection:_

_The Government activates Emergency Sanction 12, entitling a suspension of democracy due to a plague spreading around the city, which Arcreus custom made himself with the help of captured microbiologists from surrounding areas. Theo is reported to have told members of his closest circle that this was to eliminate the government who have betrayed him and are trying to contact surrounding districts for help with the dystopia that the city had become. Theo gives the members of his closest circle the vaccination for the disease._

_13th November 3168- 2 years after resurrection:_

_The Government has been wiped out along with 49% of the population of Soleanna thanks to the plague, Theo instates members of his closest circle into the government, therefore allowing him control of the government and the laws that are passed._

_23rd Febuary 3169- 2 ½ years after resurrection:_

_Soleannan government activates Emergency Sanction 8, which keeps Soleanna in lockdown for the foreseeable future, giving the government control of the food and medical supplies coming into the city, which in turn are controlled by Arcreus, from this he could suspend food and medical supplies to people who had crossed him, causing them to either die of numerous diseases or of starvation. Visitors to the city must be searched, scanned and inoculated against the numerous infections that polluted the streets. This process must be repeated to anyone leaving the city as well._

_4th July 3169- 2 ½ years after the resurrection:_

_Arcreus removes his control from the government, he now entrusts control of the city to the government, now that the opposition has been annihilated. His final order is that the military won't attack surrounding areas, due to some form of respect for King Elias Acorn._

_Theo now lives out his life in 'Demons Bane'_

_2nd September 3171- 5 years after resurrection:_

_Present Day. Lockdown has been removed from the city and life has mostly returned to normal, despite the city now being an independent, communist state instead of a democratic one. Theo's business brings Theo a steady profit, and gives him satisfaction at being able to do some good for the world. But despite all his contacts and his power. Something is waiting in the dark for him… _


	2. Demons Bane

**A/N: On with the next chapter, if you want an OC to be in this story, please PM me, include**

**Name**

**Age**

**Species**

**Fur Colour**

**Eye Colour**

**Backstory (In relation to this story)**

**Description**

**Weapons**

**Powers **

**Views of Theo (Friend or Foe? & why)**

In a small backstreet in the centre of the communist state of Soleanna stood a small terrace building, it wasn't very wide but it made up for its width with its height, clawing upwards into the clear blue sky. At first glance, with its cryptic cyphers and flickering neon sign, one could have easily mistaken it for a tattoo parlour or some form of gothic nightclub. But the ambiguous symbols weren't advertising tattoo designs, like an untrained individual might expect, but if one could read them; they would see that the symbols were for protection from the supernatural. This was because this was no ordinary building; this was 'Demons Bane', an infamous place, known throughout Soleanna, as the go-to place if you had a problem of the supernatural kind.

On this particular, summers morning, the consultancy was closed, its curtains drawn, the lights inside, dim and diffused by the mask that the curtains created between them and the outside world. However inside, the owner, Theodore Arcreus had just woken and was now sat at his tatty, mahogany desk, boot on the tarnished wood, idly rocking backwards and forwards on his bog-standard chair, listening to Lyla by Oasis blaring from the jukebox in the corner of the room, though his gaze was fixed on the door. In the years that had passed since his resurrection, Theo had changed; he had grown about an inch and thanks to his new occupation was also near the peak of his fitness and strength. Warm water from his resent shower dripped from his six-inch quills and slid down his shoulders and his bare chest, he shook his head, like a dog, sending water drops splaying across the room, he then grabbed a black towel that lay crumbled on his desk and began to dry his quills, humming the rowdy song as he did so.

Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the door, causing the curtains covering it to jump away from the wood and then fall yet again. Theo jumped slightly at the sound, and then fell back to his normal, cool self.

"We're closed!" Theo shouted over the music, eyes closed, hands behind his head, there was another loud bang on the door, he opened one eye in irritation then closed it again, sighing to himself. Then there was a loud crack, as the door was smashed open, sending splinters flipping from the cracked frame, Theo jerked from his relaxation and whipped his feet from the desk, glaring at the undefined shadows that flooded into the room,

"I hope you guys have enough money to pay for that door" Theo grunted, one hand beneath his desk, which was firmly nestled around a 44. Magnum. As the figures approached him, the grip around the gun increased, his eyes narrowed, trying to pick out individual features that would help him identify the figures. Then as his eyes adjusted to the sudden sunlight and he managed to recognise the figures. Out of the dim atmosphere, King Elias loomed out of it, dressed in his royal robes underneath a great blue cloak, with the hood covering his head, around him were his personal guard, also dressed in long cobalt cloaks, hoods raised, parts of their faces masked by shadow.

Theo smiled, his grip still tight around the gun, he leaned forward, placing his forearm on the desk to support himself,

"You here to use the bathroom? It's just round the back" Theo smirked, gesturing with his thumb to a door at the rear of the room. Elias' expression didn't falter what-so-ever, his guards became restless, shifting on their feet and fiddling with something in their back pockets, which Theo automatically assumed were personal firearms.

"Always the joker, huh?" Elias said, folding his arms "Even after all this time"

Theo shrugged "Fine then" he said, picking the pistol up from underneath his desk "I'll cut out the jokes and get straight to the point". In one movement, Theo kicked the chair back, so it hit the wall with a loud bang, and causing him to stand, in a fighting stance, with the Magnum pointing at Elias, cocked and ready to fire.

At this movement, the guards reacted like they had been trained to; they pulled their personal firearms from the holsters and aimed them at Theo, their expressions blank, one of a marksman ready to kill the target. Elias stepped back slightly into his protection; Theo adjusted his aim accordingly,

"Why the fuck are _you_ here?" Theo said, eyes locked with Elias' "I tried to distance myself as far as I could from you for the past five years, and now you break into my home to see… me?"

"I'll explain" Elias said, through gritted teeth "Just put your gun down, you're outnumbered"

"What? So you can shoot me?" Theo said, his grip increasing

"Just put it down" Elias said, Theo glared at him, then slowly lowered the revolver and placed it on the wooden table , as soon as he did this, a guard rushed forward and snatched it away and tucked it into his waistband.

"Ok then Elias" Theo said, grabbing his chair from the wall and pulled it towards the desk before plonking himself onto it, he opened a draw and pulled out a lighter and a packet of cigarettes, tearing off its plastic wrapper, Theo opened the cardboard box and pulled out one of the cigarettes, before placing it in his mouth and igniting the end with his lighter, which he swiftly clicked shut before placing it back on his desk. Tobacco smoke, curled and danced its way to the ceiling and Elias grimaced at the smell, Theo took the cigarette out of his mouth and tapped it on the glass ashtray, dislodging some of the burnt ash,

"You still haven't answered my question" Theo said, not looking up from the ashtray.

"Since when did you smoke?" Elias asked, eyebrow raised, Theo looked up in surprise,

"Pardon me?"

"You never smoked before" Elias commented "Why now?"

Theo placed the smoking drug back in his mouth and inhaled once more, sending the ashes at the tip of it, red; he took it out of his mouth and spoke once more, smoke lacing his breath as he exhaled.

"Its helps me relax"

"Relax?"

"Yep"

"A life threatening drug helps you to chill?" Elias commented, arms folded

"Please" Theo smirked "My life expectancy is low anyway, why make it longer?"

Elias frowned, then shook his head, apparently unable to understand such a concept, he signalled to his guards, one by one, they moved to the back of the room, guarding the front door, their concentration still fixed on Elias and Theo, Elias pulled up a stained, wooden chair, and sat opposite Theo, the desk between them,

"I'm here because I need your erm…..talents"

Theo took his feet off the desk and suddenly became intensely focused, he placed the cigarette in the glass ash tray, and entwined his fingers, resting his chin on the platform, attempting to look professional, despite him being half naked.

"I'm listening"

Elias clicked his fingers, a guard walked forward and gave him a highly reinforced, steel briefcase, clasped shut with several coded locks on the lid, as the guard retreated, Elias ran his thumbs over the dials of the locks, turning them to the correct combination, after a few seconds, the lid sprung open and Elias reached in. Theo lent forward even more trying to see its contents, due to the cases size, he thought that it would contain something large and bulky, however it didn't, Elias pulled out a thin file and tossed it onto the desk, causing it to spin towards Theo. Theo stopped it with his palm and opened its beige cover, with _PRIVATE _stamped across it; inside lay four A4 photos, he flicked through them as Elias explained,

"Over the past two weeks, there have been numerous cyphers appearing around the Kingdom, all of them appeared overnight and in places where they could easily be seen. I have been reliably informed that you are an expert on supernatural and demonic script and since hardly anyone else can…"

"You want me to check it out." Theo finished, he had spread the photos across the wooden surface, he examined each one individually, noticing that each symbol was the same design, 12 circles of miniscule text, each with unique spacing and gaps between the symbols, each circle getting gradually smaller as they got closer to the centre, at which was emblazoned a design which appeared to represent a clock, but with three hands and what appeared to be six numbers, written in demonic script circling it rather than the conventional twelve.

"So what can you make of it?" Elias asked his eyes bright with intrigue. Theo looked at them, his eyes narrowed, trying to read the symbols, after about ten seconds Theo sighed and placed the photographs back down on the table and glared at Elias,

"How much for the job?"

Elias turned the briefcase round, revealing the remainder of the brief-cases contents. Inside lay bundles and bundles of dollar bills, neatly stacked on top of each other like the bricks of a house, this was more than any other payment he had ever being given for any job before, he now understood why the case was so well protected and reinforced.

"$120,000" Elias said "It's all there. If you want it"

Theo thought, eyes closed, trying to way up the pros and cons of his decision, ever since Dimitri had informed him of his revelation when he was locked in a dream-like state, Theo had thought about every decision he made, even if it was only for a split-second; Dimitri's idea had remained in him, planted in his subconscious, just like the mechanical implant that the echidna scientist had placed in his brain, the idea was the most incurable thing imaginable, everyday life was tainted with the idea, with every decision he made, with every path he walked, there was no relief or escape, his life had been changed.

His decision had been made; Theo sighed and picked up the still smoking cigarette from the ashtray and smoked it, then took it out of his mouth and looked at Elias,

"Ok. I'll do the job" he stood up and tucked his chair under the desk "But not for you, it my job, you've given me an interesting suggestion, and a good amount of money and I have accepted." Theo turned his back to them and moved towards the door that stood at the back of the room,

"Where are you going?" Elias asked, standing up suddenly, sending his chair scooting backwards.

"I need to get some stuff before I pack up and leave" Theo grunted, he moved towards the staircase, Elias gestured towards two of the guards to follow him, the demon ascended the staircase, quietly followed by two of Elias' burliest guards, their eyes searching The like X-Ray machines trying to pick out any form of a weapon. When he reached the top of the stairs, Theo opened another door, its discoloured white paint peeling in strips, downwards. As the door swung open, Theo stepped into the room, inside was a small bed, which lay tucked up in the corner, its covers lay in a heap on top of the yellowing mattress, a wardrobe stood opposite, its wooden peak touching the ceiling. However the room was dominated by a sheet of vast steel mesh that covered the back wall, upon which was attached a multitude of weapons, from shotguns to numbchuks, from demonic daggers to rocket launchers, all of which he had used at least one previously, but on a giant stand in the centre of the plethora of murderous weapons, stood his most used and most trusted weapon of all, a scythe, its long metallic handle encrusted with demonic runes and script, that spiralled all the way up the handle, its shining blade was ornately decorated with baroque swirls and patterns that added to its overall sense of devastating beauty.

However, Theo ignored this and walked briskly over to the wardrobe, and threw open its wooden doors, in a flash he grabbed a black vest and scrambled into it, once that was on, he pulled his signature black leather trench coat off a coat hanger and slipped it on. The coat had white swirls lasing the dark material, however they, like almost all of the coat, was slightly warn, the black and white leather, slowly ebbing away into its more natural grey state in places, however, despite this Theo still wore it everywhere he went. With its tail billowing behind him, Theo rushed over to the wall of weapon and picked of two sets of numbchuks which he slotted into his belt, however as he lay his hands on the handle of the scythe, and the runes began to glow a bright blue, he heard one of the guards grunt as if in pain.

"If you're going to be sick" Theo said loudly, strapping the scythe to his back. He turned to see what the matter was "Don't bother doing it on the carp-…O….K". Both of the guards had transformed, their skin had peeled away, revealing a hard exoskeleton underneath, similar to the armour of a cockroach fused with the gallant armour of a medieval knight. Their muscles had expanded greatly and looked as if they were going to bust underneath the thick exoskeleton, their jaws had become longer and more elongated, causing their chins to extend outwards like the butt of some insane mask, the gums had cracked due to the rapid expansion of their teeth, causing, a thick black blood to seep out of their mouths and to dribble onto their cracked lips and chins. Their fingers had grown into huge claws, at least 30cm long, as they advanced; one of them scrapped its claws across the wallpaper, causing a noise similar to nails being dragged down a chalkboard. Theo cringed at the sound, and reached for the handle of the scythe on his back, but before he could get a firm hold, one of the demons grabbed him around the throat and lifted him off the floor, Theo scrabbled at the claws that closed slowly on his wind pipe, his hands trying to pull the fingers off, however before he claimed a firm hold, the demon tossed his backwards, sending him crashing through a grimy window, he fell two storeys, yelling from the shock, and hit the ground with a loud 'thunk' , cracking the cobblestones beneath him. Groaning, Theo slowly picked himself up, rubbing his arm where he had hit the ground,

"That's going to hurt in the morning" Theo muttered to himself, there came a loud crash from above him, glancing up he saw the two demons dash through the brickwork as if it were paper, sending motor and masonry raining down upon the road, Theo grinned and pulled the scythe off his back, spinning it in one hand as he did so, not just as an attempt to scare the demons but also as an attempt to look cool,

"Come on then, come on" Theo muttered as the demons landed on the road. They advanced on him, moving deceptively quickly, as soon as it was within range, one of the demons lashed out with its claws, Theo quickly raised the scythe and blocked the swipe, swiftly before smashing the butt of the scythes handle into the demons face, causing it to shriek in shock and pain. While it's companion recovered, the other moved in, attempting to grab Theo, but yet again Theo had an advantage, speed. He rolled underneath the grab, and back up into a standing position before the demon had time to react, Theo made a powerful swipe with the scythe, slicing apart the back of the demons knees, smashing apart the exoskeleton to reveal the pink blubbery flesh underneath. The demon collapsed to its knees and quick as a flash, Theo raised the scythe and brought it soring down, the blade smashing through the thick shell of its back and out of its chest in a vicious spray of black blood. The demon screamed in agony,

"OH SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Theo yelled over the din, he pulled the scythes blade out of the creature, however before the creature could thick it was out of its torment, Theo swung the scythe from right to left, slicing the creatures head clean off, which slammed into a nearby wall and shattered against it.

Then out of nowhere, the other demon grabbed him, causing Theo to drop the scythe, he struggled against its grip, the demon chuckled, however Theo grinned,

"Bad luck pal" Theo clicked his fingers, demonic tendrils burst from his back, throwing the demon off him, the hedgehog turned and grabbed the demon with the demonic arms, lifting it up. After watching it struggle, Theo chuckled and clenched his fist; the arms tightened and tore the larger demon apart, throwing pitch black blood all over the street. With another click of his fingers, the tendrils defused into smoke and blew away on the breeze. Theo breathed deeply, forcing his heart rate down from his battle. The door to 'Demons Bane' flew open and Elias and the guards bolted out, they looked at the remains of the battle with wide eyes, then at Theo.

"What?-What was that?" Elias asked, one hand on the handle of his sword, which Theo had just noticed he wore. Theo frowned then moved towards the remains of one of the demons, he stooped down then grabbed its wrist, on one side of it, a small cypher was emblazed there, burnt into the skin, he recognised it as one of the symbols that Elias had shown him in the photographs.

"Don't know" Theo said, he straightened up and picked up his scythe that lay nearby, pooled in demon blood, he turned to look at Elias "But I do know that I'm definitely doing this job now"…

**A/N: That chapter two done, remember, if you want your OC to be in the story, review or PM me with the details. Please review before you go with your thoughts and queries.**


	3. Insoltia Prospectu

**A/N: Thanks to all for their reviews and their praise for the story so far, remember to keep sending in OC's. This chapter features Anything170's OC, Mark. So on with the chapter…**

_New Mobotropolis- 6 hours later_

The armoured vehicle pulled into the square, slowly crawling along the cobblestones, allowing time for the hordes of people that had accumulated here to move out of its way. Theo looked out of the window from the back seat, behind the tinted glass; he spotted the giant cypher on the towering war memorial that covers one side of the square, the names of the great heroes now obscured by the deep burns of the cypher. Around it, were an incomprehensible amount of archaeologists and reporters, the latter of which were being held back by a plethora of guards. The car stopped and Theo turned to Elias who sat next to him, he nodded and the two got out of the car, from opposite doors, Theo picking up his scythe which had been lent on the middle seat.

Like flies drawn to rotting meat, the reporters descended on Elias, all trying to get interviews or to get some form of a photograph, the remainder of Elias' guards swarmed around him, pushed the reporters back like antibodies destroying a virus. However Theo followed Elias, head down not trying to attract any attention, but this technique didn't work, the reporters fell silent when they saw him, they watched as he and Elias walked towards the large marque that had been erected in the centre of the square.

"What's _he_ doing here?" one of the reporters yelled, pointing an accusing finger at Theo, like a wildfire, the yells of protest and shrieks on injustice spread among the reporters, all crying 'murderer' or 'betrayer' or some other insults.

"Nice to see that I'm so loved here" Theo said to himself, before turning to the angry hordes and giving a wave, a cocky smile emblazoned on his face, which only infuriated the reporters more. One of them managed to duck underneath the arm of a guard, out into the square about 40 metres ahead of Theo, then he saw the small compact pistol in his hand, the reporter raised it and fired two shots at Theo, both missing him, causing screams to emerge from the crowd, shortly before the reporter was tackled to the ground by another guard. Theo recognised that GUN agents were standing guard outside the marque, their weapons cradled in their arms in a relaxed fashion; Theo had been taught this method before, it was better if you looked calm and approachable than being constantly on guard. However as Theo and Elias drew near, They saluted, but some lowered it instantly, when they saw Theo, frowning and gripping onto their guns a little too hard, their knuckles going white from their grip.

"In we go" Elias muttered and he pushed aside the canvas flap that covered the entrance, allowing them both to step through. The canvas walls were covered with photographs of the cypher, all in different formats; Infra-Red, Ultraviolet, Radio, desks had been set up in rows all down the marque, each one carrying either microscopes loaded with samples from the cypher or with thickly bound papers and files, with a whole range of scientific equipment scattered around the makeshift room, the light streaming through the canvas gave the room a bright yet shaded look. Inside there were three people, dotted around the room, a tall brown wolf lent against one of the desks, his blood red eyes scanning the demon and the squirrel that had just entered the tent, the light that seeped in shone off the wolfs jacket, that Theo noticed had a crossed hammer and sickle on the left sleeve, his trousers were scuffed, suggesting prolonged use and his jet black boot were in no better state. Theo eyed the weapon that sat on the table behind the wolf; a vicious, double ended sword, however neither side ended with a sharp blade, one of them curved into a hook to form a sickle whilst the other bloomed and swelled to become a thick hammer. The wolf noticed him looking, causing him frown and turn away.

The other two were stood by a desk on the far corner of the room, a hedgehog with light blue quills and a large grey moustache and eyebrows, and a much smaller hedgehog, a child, with black fur with a small white patch near his temple, his left arm was bound in a sling, thick plaster wrapped tightly over it. Both of them were looking at Theo and Elias, obviously they had been preoccupied earlier but Theo guessed that they had become more alert from the gunshots that had echoed in from outside. Upon seeing Elias, the young black hedgehog darted towards him, arm outstretched, the child brushed past Theo, the demon noticed that the child had a much longer tail, more like a cat's. Elias crouched down and hugged the child when he flew into his arms.

"Hey Zexus" Elias said, grinning as he hugged the child, the hedgehog pulled away, and suddenly became still,

"We heard gunfire outside, Daddy, I didn't know whether you were hurt or-"

Elias shushed him "Relax, Daddy's fine, don't worry". The child known as Zexus turned to Theo and stared up at him, and Theo stared back, his eyes furrowed,

"Who's he?" Zexus asked, turning back to Elias, a confused look in his eyes

"This is Theo, he's come to solve the problem with the symbols" Elias said, Zexus turned back to Theo, eyes wide,

"You study symbols?"

Theo smiled "Kind of"

Zexus frowned and cocked his head, studying Theo's face, especially the black veins that covered his skin,

"What's wrong with your face?" he asked, Theo reached up and traced the veins with his finger,

"Oh, I was born with it" Theo lied, placing his hands back in the pockets in his trench coat. However before Zexus could reply, Elias clicked his fingers and one of his soldiers stepped in, he tapped Zexus on the shoulder and gestured towards the soldier,

"Sargent, Take Zexus to get an Ice-Cream or something. We've got some business to take care off"

"Yes sir" The soldier said, Zexus gave a final, glancing look at Elias, before scurrying out of the marque's entrance, which was held open by the soldier, soon the entrance flustered closed and the four were alone.

"So" Elias said, clapping his hands together, he nodded to the light blue hedgehog that was leaning on a desk "Theo Arcreus, meet Sir Charles Hedgehog"

"I've heard a lot about you Mr Arcreus" Sir Charles said, wringing Theos hand between his own, "Mainly from my nephew, he described you, if I remember correctly as 'Insane in the membrane'"

Theo smirked, and the two parted hands "You're Sonic's Uncle, right?"

"Yep" Sir Charles said, stroking his moustache with his finger and thumb "And sonny, please don't listen to King Elias over there, I _hate_ being called 'Sir Charles', please, call me Chuck"

Theo glanced at the wolf in the corner, who was still trying not to pay any attention to them,

"Who's Mr Sociable over there?" Theo remarked, nodding towards the wolf, with a lack of interest.

"That's Mark" Elias said, strolling in from behind the two "He's Geoffrey St John's replacement in the secret service".

"Why? What happened to St John?" Theo asked, Elias rolled his eyes,

"Oh, the usual, pledged his soul to Ixis Naugus and is currently the metaphorical equivalent of his rent-boy".

Theo grunted, and folded his arms,

"Never liked that son-of-a-bitch"

"Anyway, Mark has been a great service to me" Elias said, but before he could continue, Mark cut him off,

"Thanks, your majesty" He turned and his blood red eyes bore into Theo's "Glad to know that I'm actually _appreciated_ around here". Theo shot daggers at Mark then turned away, back to Chuck.

"So what we've got?"

Chucked walked over to a projector and picked it up, placing it on a desk further way from the canvas wall, he followed the wire with his hand, until he reached the plug,

"Hang on" he clicked the switch on, and the beam ignited from the project, cascading onto the murky canvas, however nothing of interest presented himself yet. Mark lifted up his double ended sword from the desk and placed it in its leather hilt, shortly before promenading towards them, scrutinising the blank beam rom the projector.

"We're having a slideshow" Theo remarked, placing himself on a nearby desk "Be warned, I do fall asleep, unless it's the one about fire safety, I like the sirens, and the Dalmatian"

Elias shot him a queer look, and Theo's smile, ceased slightly. Chuck stood up straight and walked over to the humming projector, and pressed a few buttons, a picture appeared of the cypher that was carved into the war memorial about a hundred yards behind the marque.

"These symbols appeared all over the kingdom, in perfect synchronisation, on places where they would be seen"

"When was this?" Theo interrupted

"About a couple of days ago" Chuck said, his eyes not straying from the screen, "Anyway, all the symbols have the exact same proportions but as you can see" He clicked another button and a slide of another cypher appeared, then another, "The text and the clock centrepiece aren't the same".

"What does the clock even mean?" Mark asked, arms folded, staring patiently at the image,

Chuck sighed, and suddenly the hedgehog looked much older and much more tired than he actually was, "We don't know. Many cultures have uses clocks to symbolise different things: the passage of life, death, immortality, mystery; the list is practically endless" his finger moved to change the slide once again, but Theo stopped him,

"Wait a sec"

Chuck looked at him, eyebrow raised,

"What is it?" he said impatiently, Theo looked at they cypher, pieces of half-finished jigsaws fitting together in his brain, links forging themselves as his thoughts accelerated towards a conclusion. Finally, one burst into bloom, fully formed in his mind. _He had seen this before._

"It's a code" Theo stated, absentmindedly

"What?" Elias asked, looking from the cypher projected on the murky canvas to Theo and back again,

"It's a code, a very old one to be exact, it's called 'The Insolita Prospectu Code', its Latin for 'unusual perspective'. It was used by the very intelligent in order to find something in plain sight, which…" he cocked his head to the side a little "…Is what is being done here".

"An unusual perspective code?" Chuck exclaimed, staring aghast at the symbol, his eyes, x-raying it as if just by wishing for it, he would get it to unearth his secrets "How do you know?" Mark snorted,

"He doesn't know anything Chuck, he's just bullshitting us._ He_ probably put the cyphers there in the first place". Theo snapped his gaze from the screen and to Mark, who stood with a malevolent gin on his face,

"So what, I just happened to be in about half a dozen places at once?"

"You would have got others to help you"

"You two!" Elias barked at the two, who stopped arguing and simply tried not to acknowledge each other's existence. Theo pointed to the clock on the symbol with his index finger,

"The codes normally have a form of prompt, to show where to look, and I'd bet if you turn yourself so that a different hand is pointing up, the gap that you will see between the texts will be the message". Chuck turned his head so that one of the hands was pointing up in his perspective,

"It still looks like gobbledygook to me"

Theo pressed his fingers together and closed his eyes, so he almost resembled a detective,

"Well, The Insolita Prospectu Code is made of two codes, the directional code and something called the Andarcas Code, where a number is squared, before being quintupled then timesed by 4 then square-rooted. The first number of the answer is your answer, and this has to be done to every single number that is shown from the directional code". Chuck sighed,

"Well I can't see any numbers from these pictures, I'd better go outside and test out your theory, Mr Arcreus, with a calculator, of course" he chuckled. He coughed slightly and looked back at Theo "If their all numbers, they'd be co-ordinates. Right?"

"Maybe…Maybe" Theo said, arms folded, head bowed.

"Hey, Theo?" Mark said, Theo turned to him, he noticed that he was unusually calm. Theo unfolded his arms and placed his hands on his hips,

"What?"  
>"Can I have a word, please?" Mark nodded to the entrance with his head and Theo nodded his approval,<p>

"Excuse us" Theo said, tipping an imaginary hat to Chuck and Elias before swiftly following Mark out of the tent, the blade of his scythe just grazing the sun-baked canvas of the marque, as the two emerged from the tent, the reporters began to yell and hurl abuse at Theo once more, their fists raised in resentment and anger, sporadically followed by the occasional, old magnesium-fuelled flash of a camera, their flash bulbs held up high like satellite dishes atop a mast, the guards kept them at bay, their muscles straining to force back the horde of media officials.

"This way" Mark said, pointing to a small alleyway that led off from the square, carelessly winding and turning away to an unknown location, ornate light brackets hung from above, unlit and sparkling in the early afternoon sun. They moved towards it, forcing there way between the odd crowd of government officials or archaeologists, Theo moved slightly faster so he could stay alongside Mark, who had his hands in his pockets, head bowed, his crimson eyes observing the cobblestones and his scuffed boots.

"So what is it?" Theo asked, trying to get any response out of Mark, but he said nothing, he kept his head lowered and his gaze rooted at the stone and motor of the road "Hellllllllooooo?" Theo said, ducking slightly and waving a hand in front of Marks face, however he didn't even react, not even a flinch. Theo retracted his hand frowning slightly, he tightened his grip on one of the sets of numbchucks on his belt, he knew that in a fight, the numbchucks couldn't beat Marks double-ended sword, but it couldn't hurt. The two turned into the alley and Mark strolled further into the sidestreet, the black of his jacket and trouser, now slowly darkening from the passage from bright sunlight to shadow. As the hubbub of the crowds ebbed away, and they turned out of view of the hordes of reporters, Mark stopped and faced Theo. The violence ensured so quickly that Theo questioned whether it had happened at all, Mark grabbed Theo around the throat and placed him in a headlock, squeezing his forearm and bicep against his neck, slowly chocking him, Theo tried to grab Mark but he simply leaned out of the way, escaping his reach. Theo choked as he felt his chest constrict at the lack of oxygen, his vision greyed, the bright colours around fading into an inky greyness, with one final breathless choke, Theo collapsed, unconscious to the cobblestones, the scythe making a loud clanging noise as it hit the stone. Mark bent down and checked for a pulse on Theo's neck, upon finding it, Mark hoisted Theo's unconscious body upwards and over his shoulder in a fireman's lift, shortly before carrying him off further down the alleyway and out of sight…

**A/N: And that's the end of that chapter, thanks to all who have reviewed thus far, and I would urge you all to review and to check out 'The Mobian Adventure' stories** **by ZiGeNaToR, they are fantastic and brilliantly written.**

**See ya**


	4. Geared

**A/N: Thanks for all the support for the story, I have been getting, especially to the regular reviewers (You know who you are). Anyway on with Chapter 4:**

Theos eyelids flickered, as consciousness began to return to his brain, he groaned and tried to lift his head, but it throbbed painfully, due to the lack of oxygen that had gone to his brain. He also noticed that he was very thirsty, which really didn't help the headache; He took a deep breath and raised his head to view his surroundings, his eyes adjusting to the dusty gloom that hung around the cavernous room. He had been tied down to a chair, his coat removed from him and dumped in a corner along with his scythe and numbchucks, he sat there only in his trousers, boots and vest and gazed in awe at his environs. He seemed to be inside the top of the central clock tower of New Metropolis, light pouring through from the giant, translucent clock faces that stood either side of him, illuminating the dust particles that drifted silently downwards, caking every surface as they went, like they had done since time immemorial. The massive gears and pendulums, clunked away with no concern for the two that dwelled within their realm, the chair was placed on the edge of a large service ledge made of a thick metal mesh, right next to one of the giant clock faces, with ladders that snaked their way downwards between multiple other ledges until it reached the exit, hundreds of feet below him.

Mark was sat on the mesh floor, his back against the small concrete step that lead up to the clock face, he had detached his double ended sword into two singular objects, a hammer and a sickle, and was scrapping them together as if sharpening them.

"Boy" Theo thought, still coming round "That guy has a serious communist fetish". The wolf stood up suddenly when he noticed Theo's eyes opening; he approached slowly, placing his two weapons back into his belt.

"Wakey wakey Mr Arcreus" Mark said, striding purposefully towards him. He grabbed Theo's head by the quills and pulled it up to face him, causing Theo to wince in pain, Marks eyes searched his face as if his appearance was a interesting puzzle of illusion, "Interesting, very interesting"

"What?" Theo said, spitting out the words between his bared teeth, Mark let his head go, causing it to droop downwards once more, but Theos eyes didn't move, still fixed with an angry wroth on the wolf. Mark turned away and walked over to the titanic, glass clock face, his blood red eyes staring out at the featureless silhouettes of the buildings of the city beyond.

"For a demon, you're not very demonic. You're almost, oh I don't know…tame?" Mark said, a smile creeping upon his lips. Theo growled, his wrists straining against the rope that bound them behind the back of the chair,

"How-"

"How do I know that you're a demon?" Mark interrupted, his eyes flickering from Theo then back to the window, he noticed that his eyes suddenly became crest fallen , becoming tainted with some silent reproach "I made a deal, Mr Arcreus, one that I'm not proud of, but I had to".

"With who?" Theo grunted, pulling against the rope, feeling some of the individual treads snap or come loose,

"I had to save my family" Mark continued, ignoring Theo's question "It was the only option".

"With who!" Theo yelled at him, wincing slightly as the rope burned his skin as he pulled and twisted his wrists as much as he dared without giving his game away. Mark looked at him, making no effort to disguise the molten fury in his eyes,

"The Devil, Mr Arcreus, Satan himself". At this Theo burst out laughing, he knew that Mark seemed like he was being serious, but, The Devil? He had never heard anything as ludicrous in his life.

"I'm sorry but, The Devil doesn't exist" Theo said, through fits of giggles, Mark glowered at him,

"If Demons do, why not the Devil?"

Theo shook his head,

"Kid, The Devil is just a story that is told to demons to keep them in line, he's never been real and he never will be". Mark frowned, then turned away from the clock face, briskly then strode over to Theo, when he reached him; he kneeled down so he was at Theo's height,

"He told me that in order to save my family from become cursed creatures of the night, I would have to collect a hundred souls in a year, and that one day, I would meet a demon whose soul I could claim to help my cause. He even gave me you name, and he told me about you…what you really are. He told me about a plan he had for you and also gave me a series of numbers that I could use to my advantage when the time came". Theo leaned in so the two were almost nose to nose,

"Then why haven't you done it already?. Y'know, taken my soul?" Mark straightened up and pulled the hammer and sickle out from his belt, he resumed one of his previous actions and scrapped them against each other, causing sparks to fly, accompanied by the atrocious sound of metal against metal that sent shivers down Theo's spine.

"Those numbers are the answers that you crave" Mark said, tapping his right picket with his sickle, explicitly telling Theo where they were,

"The answer to the code" Theo stated, Mark nodded

"Yes, he told me as much" Mark looked over his shoulder at Theo; he ceased his struggling under his gaze and glared back at him. The wolf turned away once more, revelling in his gloating. Unknown to him, Theo dug his fingernail underneath some of the threads of the rope and tore them away, with a few more struggles; he felt the rope becoming weaker and weaker until it fell away. Mark heard the noise of the rope hitting the metal surface and turned to see Theo stood up, hands balled into fists, teeth bared. Mark chuckled,

"I knew I should have tied you up with something better, No matter" Mark said, his grip tightening on his weapons "I'll simply take that soul from you now". He rushed forward and swiped at Theo with the sickle, Theo dodged to the side, rolling away from the attack, before throwing a side kick out at Marks head, which caught him on the side of his head, causing him to jerk sideways. Theo stood to his feet, moving his weight between his feet, as if in a karate stance. Mark rose, anger in his eyes, blood running from a gash on his forehead, created by Theo's kick.

"Come on" Theo said, grinning "Is that all you've got?", Mark growled then swung both the hammer and the sickle at him, taking Theo by surprise. He moved backwards away from the mad swipes, but then his back hit the stone wall, his stomach sank, Mark raised the hammer high above his head, the sickle protecting his chest, as the hammer fell towards Theo's face, Theo ducked, causing the hammers head to smash into the stone, tearing some of it way, but before he could roll away, Mark lashed out with the sickle, slicing Theo across the chest, causing him to yell out in pain. Theo rolled away, one hand clutched to the gash that had been gouged into his chest as if with a ruler.

He pulled his hand away and gazed at the crimson blood that had formed a puddle in the centre of his palm, he tipped his hand away, causing the blood to drip onto the floor. Mark grinned, pointing the top of the hammer at Theo, before he knew what was happening, the tip glowed white hot and a jet of fire leapt out aiming at Theo, the hedgehog spun way, causing the fireball to roar past him and hit the metal mesh, the metal deformed and melted as the fireball hit it.

"Great" Theo thought "Fire powers, now that's just cheating!"

Mark launched another fireball at Theo, making Theo spin out of its path, the tips of his quills becoming singed from the heat, as the flames passed over him, seeing his chance, the wolf lashed at him with the sickle, the blade glinting in the twilight, however before he reached him, Theo reached up and grabbed Marks wrist, twisting it; causing him to grunt in pain, while he was distracted, Theo head-butted him on his forehead, causing Mark to reel backwards, clutching his head. Theo stumbled to his feet and ran towards his coat and weapons that had been thrown in a corner, he reached the pile and pulled the coat from it, throwing it on, before snatching up the scythe and the numbchucks which he placed in his belt. Mark lifted his head, and Theo saw his nose dripping with blood, running down his lips and chin, Theo spun the scythe in one hand then caught it, beckoning to Mark with his other hand, a cocky smile on his face,

"Come on you bastard" Theo said, eyes narrowed "The odds are more fair now"

Mark growled, but then smiled, he got to his feet, brushing some imaginary dust off his trousers, he tossed the hammer idly in the air and caught it by the handle.

"Ok" Mark said, oddly he put the weapons back in his belt and flexed his fingers, Theo grinned then charged forward, scythe raised, his eyes focused, Mark raised his hand sharply upwards before Theo could strike, the floor trembled under Theo's feet, before, with a scream of snapping metal, it buckled and fell, Theo falling with it. Theo saw the platform falling away from him, the dusty air rushing past him, whistling in his ears , the figure of Mark got smaller and smaller, until he crashed onto one of the giant gears, rotating slowly, playing its part in the gargantuan mechanism inside the clock tower. Theo raised his head, coughing slightly, spitting dust coated saliva out of his mouth, there was a horrible tearing sound from above him, he whipped his head upwards, just in time to see Mark remotely tearing away a gear from its hold, before setting it ablaze with a click of his fingers.

"Great" Theo thought, crouching down low, preparing to move at a moment's notice "Fire and Earth powers, this really isn't my day", Mark launched the flaming gear at him, the brightness of the flames almost blinding him, his boots slipped slightly on the dusty metal, causing him to lurch slightly to the right, however this movement was all the time the projectile needed, its spinning protuberances hit the gearwheel Theo was stood on, tearing straight through the metal and hitting the vast metal pole that ran through the centre and attached it in place, splintering the end in a shower of sparks and shrapnel, which rocketed outwards, some pieces cutting Theos skin, one piece speeded through the air and buried itself in the muscle between his collarbone and his upper arm. Theo cried out in Pain, however before he could address the situation, he felt the ground tilt downwards, as the torn and devastated gear began to fall way, Theo scrambled towards the centre, the angle tilting even more violently until it was almost vertical, the gear began to tumble downwards, however just as it detached from the pole, Theo jumped, reaching out with the scythe and burying the blade at the very top of the remaining fragments of the pole, with a shower of red sparks, the blade began to slip downwards cutting through the metal, until thankfully the blade lodged itself firmly into the pole with a forceful lurch that almost threw Theo off its handle.

He reached with his free hand and pulled the shrapnel out of his shoulder, grunting in pain, blood dripping down the coat , he turned his head to look at Mark, who was smiling, gazing at him like a hunter looking over his prey. Mark reached into his belt and pulled out two pistols, a fast as lightning, in the few seconds that Theo saw the pistols, he recognised them, two Pythons, he had used them before when he was in GUN and he knew that they were one of the most powerful revolvers in the world. Mark aimed and fired with both pistols, the bullets sparked off the thick metal pole above Theo, he swear he felt the slipstream from a bullet whistle past his ear. Theo yelled, as one of the sparks burnt his face and pulled the scythe out of the pole, he began to fall; Mark stared quizzically at him before following him with the sights of his pistols and fired at him. The bullets whipped past Theo, one of them tearing the leather on his left sleeve and slicing his skin, Theo grunted in shock, but his earlier injuries limited the pain. Theo clicked his fingers on his free hand, he felt a surge of power course through him as his powers ignited, his eye colour faded and began to glow pure white, he felt the demonic limbs form out of his back, their surfaces dripping with a black, blood like substance. Theo tossed the scythe backwards, and one of the demonic tendrils caught it, the end of the arm morphing and splitting into what looked like clawed fingers which grasped the handle. Theo thrust the palm of his hand at the air, aiming for the platform.

In one swift move, one of the tendrils stretched outwards and latched onto the metal mesh of the platform, Mark shot at the arm in hope of being rid of it, but the tendril was stuck fast, unperturbed by the bullets. Theo was pulled from his free-fall and towards the platform, like he had been grappled up there, the wind whistled past him as he flew upwards towards the platform. In a matter of seconds, Theo launched over the barrier of the ledge and landed on the metal surface, the tendril detaching itself and returning to join its brethren, dropping the scythe as it did so which Theo caught, Mark stood their shocked, but then a cocky smile returned to his face,

"Nice party trick" Mark said, replacing the guns in his belt, and taking out the hammer and sickle "But playtimes over". Theo threw his hand out towards mark, sending the unoccupied demonic arms bearing down on him, however before the inhuman extremities could grab him and tear him limb from limb, Mark let loose and enormous blast of fire that knocked the arms away, impulsively returning and shielding Theo from the blast, the force of the inferno blasting away their protective black blood lining and roasting them, setting a few a light. Theo grunted from the effort of holding back the fire, when he was sure that the inferno had ceased, he retracted the arms; everything around him was a blaze, the air around them shimmering and dancing from the heat, Mark stood opposite him, unperturbed from the heat, his weapons glowing white hot with the heat.

Theo felt something begin to run out from his nose, he lifted his hand and dabbed at the liquid, he retracted his hand and looked at it. Blood. He knew from previous experience that if he used his powers for too long, his body began to shut down, he would start to bleed from his nose, then his ears, then every other place on his body until he passed out, one boring Sunday afternoon, he had sat in a chair then activated his powers and waited just to see what would happen, twenty minutes later, a customer had found him in the chair bloody and unconscious.

"Looks like you're getting tied!" Mark yelled over the roar of the flames "From a simple mortal, your mother would be disappointed"

Theo growled "I didn't know my mother, but if you're calling me a son of a bitch, you wouldn't be the first!" Theo darted forward and grabbed Mark by the throat, before he could act any further, one of the brackets holding up the platform snapped, throwing the two sideways, smashing through the glass of the clock face and falling through the clear afternoon air. Out of the corner of his eye, Theo noticed that they had been inside the Great Tower, the largest clock tower on the continent, the AI system, Nicole is said to have moulded the tower on the image of another clock tower, a human one called 'Big Ben'. The two were falling towards the Lake of Rings below, its silky blue surface sparkling in the afternoon light, as they spiralled downwards, Theo noticed that the tower was alive with flames, the inferno ripping apart the stone and brickwork. The wind whistled through his ears, deafening him to anything else until the two smacked into the lake, the water enveloping them, soothing his injuries but also ignited more pain from the surface tension of the water.

He looked down, although his vision was blurry in the water, he saw that Marks body was limp and unconscious, he grabbed him by the scruff of the collar, he couldn't afford for him to die, he had information that he needed. He kicked upwards, one hand on his scythe, one hooked in Marks jacket, propelling himself to the surface, in a few seconds he rose the 25 or so metres and broke the surface, taking in a great lung-full of air, his vision blinded by the sun. Theo turned to look at Mark, he was breathing, and seemed to be slowly coming around, he kicked towards the nearest bank, kicking up mud and pebbles, erasing the illusion of the clear blue lake. Theo began to wade through the water, dragging Marks body and eventually dumping him on the muddy bank, Theo strapped the scythe onto his back and knelt down, he tapped Mark down, the wolf unable to stop him, he subconsciously knew what he was looking for, even though he didn't know it at first, he felt a bulge in the clothing on his jacket, he unzipped it and reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a envelope. Opening it, Theo took out a folded piece of paper, a drawing of the cypher and several pictures of himself; one was a ceremonial GUN picture of him in uniform while the others were numerous CCTV screenshots. Theo shook Mark conscious then grabbed him by the throat; he asked him the question that he wanted to know since Mark told him,

"Who was the person that told you about me?" Theo said, tightening his grip around Marks throat

"I told you" Mark wheezed "The Devil" Theo growled and punched him across the face, taking out his frustration upon him,

"Bullshit!" Theo yelled "You've made that up. Who was he?". Mark choked for air then responded,

"He only told me his name at the end" Mark gulped "He gave me all I need to harvest the souls and he told me all about your past and what you are" Sirens began to wail, slowly growing louder as the emergency services approached. "Do you even know what you truly are?" Theo frowned, his grip around his throat slackened slightly, "You're _not_ half-demon, half-mobian…You're half-demon, half-_angel_". At this Marks eyes closed and he slipped again into unconsciousness. Theo retracted his hand from Marks throat and grabbed his wrist, pulling the sleeve down, revealing the cypher that had been burnt into the war monument, just like the demons that had attacked him at Demons Bane, he stood up, facing the vehicles that rounded the corner of the road that snaked around the lake.

Theo was surprised when GUN vehicles appeared around the corner, braking to a halt in front of him, doors being thrown open, Theo had completely forgot about the folded piece of paper in his palm, he unfolded it, revealing a sequence of numbers. The co-ordinates. Marks final words still swum around in his mind. He wasn't half-demon, he was half-demon, half-angel. But angels didn't exist, demons did, but angels were just fairy tales. Weren't they. He was thrown out of his thoughts by a GUN soldier that had approached him; Theo casually strolled past him,

"Go clear out the trash guys" Theo said, pointing with his thumb, over his shoulder at Mark who lay unconscious at the lakeside.

"Sir" The soldier called after him, Theo turned, "We've been ordered to bring you in, sir; as a secondary objective." Theo smiled and walked back towards him,

"Hey, hey, hey, wait a sec pal. I didn't destroy the clock tower over there"

"No" a female voice said from behind him "But you helped in fucking it over". Theo turned to see a black bat, dressed in GUN standard uniform with two swords held in scabbards on her back, her purple eyes were kind, but also his a dark focus which she could have only got from years of military training, her black and purple wings glinted in the late afternoon sun, giving her a nimbus which radiated around her. He recognised her at once.

"Cynder" Theo said "You look well"

"You don't" she retorted smirking slightly at his appearance "You look like shit"

"I'll take that as a compliment" Theo said, smirking "Why do you want me in anyway?"

Cynder glanced at Marks unconscious body being carried away on a stretcher and into the back of a waiting ambulance.

"This matter has now been classed as an infringement of national security. So it's been handed over to us, and that means that the King has handed your services over to us as well" Cynder stated, a matter of factly, Theo groaned,

"Aww, does this mean I'm not going to be paid now?"

Cynder blinked in surprise, then responded "No, the $120,000 payment is still there" Theo smiled

"Cool. Also do you have a cigarette?" Cynder frowned,

"No, but there's some in the car, I think" She gestured to a black motor vehicle that stood about twenty metres away Theo walked over to it and after a few seconds of searching found a cigarette box and a disposable lighter, he took one of them out of the box, placed it in his mouth and lit it,

"Great" Theo said "I really needed that to calm me down" he jumped into the backseat of the car, throwing his scythe down on the remaining two seats, Cynder still watching him , and put his seatbelt on, unperturbed by his injuries, looking more like a excited six year old waiting to go to the fun fair. Marks revelation haunted his mind along with all the other information he had boasted to him, somehow he knew that this was probably the biggest thing he had ever faced, so if he wanted to find what it was, he needed help. He leant back in the seat, took the cigarette out of his mouth and said,

"Take me to you leader".

**A/N: And that's the end of that chapter, I won't be updating in a while due to exams and shit. But I'll try and update as much as I can. Remember if you want your OC in the story, please review with their profile or PM them me, I will also read and review any story that you want my verdict on.**


	5. Under House Arrest

**A/N: Ok on with the next chapter, as some of you have probably noticed, this story is part 1 of 2 of a much larger story, I won't reveal the plot for part 2 but I'm hoping it will be this story will be the best in the series. Thanks for all the OC requests, two more will be in this chapter, Epsilon Team Sgt. Mikes OC, Fever and N3rmAk37's OC, Carmine. On we go…**

After an hour and a half's trip from New Metropolis to Station Square, the convoy pulled up at the foot of two massive, steel blast doors with GUN sprayed onto them with jet black spray paint. Inside one of the cars, Cynder finished attending to Theo's wounds, securing the sterile bandage that was wrapped around his shoulder, by pulling on the strappings and tightening the knot, making Theo wince slightly. As the car braked, Cynder leaned back and glanced out of the tinted window at the entrance to GUN Headquarters,

"Ok then" she said, turning away and flicking the lid of the first aid kit shut and fastening the clasps "We're here", Theo followed suit and looked out of the window, eyeing the place for any extra security that would have been put in since he was last here. The guards still patrolled the checkpoint while two GUN Beetles covered the entrance, their artificial eyes scanning the environment ahead, checking for danger; all of these were of course, armed to the teeth.

"Thanks Cynder" Theo grunted, still looking out of the window as the convoy was checked by the soldiers, he knew that in precisely 60 seconds, the blast doors would open and the convoy would roll on in, and he would be trapped in there, the perfect base or the perfect prison.

"No problem, it was that or let you bleed all over the chairs" Cynders response, threw Theo out of his thoughts, he turned to look at her, grinning. He expected her to be smiling back but she was stony faced, her eyes dark and turned away from him, instead focusing on her lap, "Hey, can I ask you something?" she suddenly asked, Theo leant back, trying not to lean to heavily on his newly bandaged shoulder,

"Shoot"

"Why did you take control of Soleanna?" Theo was thrown by the question; he frowned then looked at the protective glass separating them from the anonymous driver, when he was sure that they wouldn't be heard, he turned to Cynder,

"I got rid of its leader, who didn't care for them; it was what was needed"

Cynder frowned

"And you don't care that you caused bombings in towns all over the Soleanna area, killing innocent people?". Theo glowered and turned away, looking out of the window, "I needed to install fear"

"You murdered hundreds, innocent people, including children!" Cynder barked at him,

"They deserved it, they were a corrupted society" Theo muttered,

"But they were innocent!" Cynder yelled, "You got whatever future you had, and threw it away with your façade of a crusade" Theo said nothing, Cynder sighed and turned away; the guards outside waved them through and the car rolled forward, the blast doors opening to swallow them up, like the jaws of some horrible creature. Lasers scanned the cars, checking for any security breaches, like explosives attached to the fuel tank or any other devise that could endanger the passengers; green lights lit the walls a few seconds later, indicating that the convoy was clean. The cars moved on, into a cavernous entrance, with tanks and armoured vehicles parked on either side, lit from above by massive flood lights suspended by thick chains.

The engines of the cars cut out and the driver of Cynder and Theo's car got out, gesturing to Cynder to do the same, the bat looked at Theo,

"Come on" She opened the door and weaved out the car into the open, Theo pulled the door handle and opened the door, straitening up out of the car, grabbing his scythe as he did so and strapping it to his back. A thick steel door on the opposite end of the room opened with a hiss of hydraulics and a figure walked though, looking at him, Theo realised this was a person who he never expected to see again, his expression was darker and his overall tone was one of a person ready to kill anyone to get anything that he needed. Multiple, tiny white scars, criss-crossed his muzzle, showing how many encounters with violence he had had since Theo had last seen him. Shadow the hedgehog walked into the glare of the flood lights, his crimson eyes glanced in Theos direction, he couldn't tell what look it was that he gave him, one of disappointment? Of regret? Or one of just pure unbridled hate? Theo didn't know which, this person had been his mentor, the one who had taught him how to kill in a whole manner of unpleasant ways, in some ways, he was the person that had made Theo what he was today. However, Theo knew a rift had opened between them and that this would never mend, no matter what he did to try and repair it. Shadow walked past Theo, Theo gave him a small nod of acknowledgement but Shadow did not return it, He strode straight past him and up to Cynder, where he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug, burying his head in the crook of her neck. Theo stood there like a new member of a group of friends, not saying anything but simply staying still, trying to think his way out of the awkward situation.

"I presume I'm missing something here?" Theo asked, sidling over to the embracing couple, with his hands behind his back, they pulled away from each other, Shadow coughed, awkwardly and looked at Theo who was still waiting patiently, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels like a little girl.

"Yeah, me and Cynder are a couple" Shadow said quietly, although he turned his head away when he said that, Theo swore that he caught the sign of a blush on his face. Theo raised an eyebrow, grinning slightly,

"So what? You two are banging behind closed doors?"

Shadows eyes flared and he snatched a pistol of one of the guards that flanked him and raised it, the barrel pointing in-between Theo's eyes,

"Don't think that I won't just blow you away right here" Shadow said darkly, gun still raised; Theo smirked,

"What, Like how Cynder blows you-" he didn't have time to finish the sentence as Shadow had flipped the gun so he was holding the barrel and in one swift move drove the barrel into the side of Theo's head with a sharp crack. He wheeled away, cradling the fresh gash that had appeared on the side of his forehead, he cursed and staggered lightly,

"Fuck! That hurt!" Shadow raised the barrel yet again, but Cynder caught his wrist and stopped him,

"Shadow!" she said, the ebony hedgehog looked over his shoulder at his girlfriend, their eyes baring into each other's, then Shadow sighed and lowered the pistol, handing it back to the guard who he had taken it from in the first place,

"Sorry" Shadow mumbled , walking away from Theo and over to the entrance into the great steel megalith of the fortress; Cynder helped Theo to his feet, then once he was on his own two feet, she slapped his across the face, jerking Theo's head to the side,

"Damnit!" He yelled "What was that for?"

"That was for being a douche" She said, her expression softening as she watched Theo nurse the red, hand shaped mark of his face, cursing under his breath "He's still a bit cagey about the fact that we are together. So show some god-damn respect for once".

"Right" Theo said "Sorry"

The three of them, flanked by guards entered the main heart of the GUN complex, looking around Theo saw that the great deal of it hadn't changed, the whole right wall of the corridor had been replaced by bullet proof that overlooked a vast gymnasium, filled with various activities from weights, to running machines to an assault course, and in the top left corner of the room, a game of soccer was even happening, humans vs. mobians by the looks of the teams; all of this was lit with a harsh, artificial orange light that nearly all gymnasiums seemed to have. Theo chuckled to himself when he remembered how when he was first training here, he had been in the Gym from 5am until breakfast, doing weight training and basic then eventually advance marital arts with Shadow and occasionally Rouge, who both pushed him beyond his limit. But it had all paid off in the end. They left the corridor through a set of double doors ahead which led into a large, office like room, with agents at desks, either typing away at computers or writing , each of the work spaces separated by thin metal walls, about a metre high. At the very corners of each room, spiralling metal staircases led up to steel walkways high above which led to several sets of double doors, which Theo knew from past experiences led to sleeping quarters, complete with en suite single bedrooms for all recruits, once you had spent six months there, you had to move out and find your own accommodation, thankfully for Theo, GUN had just finished restoring an old manor just around the time when he was moving out , and after much deliberation, GUN gave the house to Theo.

Theo sighed, he didn't know what had happened to the house but he guessed it had probably fallen into ruins or had been burnt down or vandalised by citizens who wished to condemn Theo's crimes. Either way he knew his home was no longer in the state it had been a mere seven years earlier, he noticed it had gone unnaturally quiet, he snapped out of his thoughts and saw that every agent in the room was looking at him, many with looks of fear and unease, but others had looks of confusion as they saw the cut from Shadow's attack with even now was flowing with blood, which passed over the cut skin and had begun to run down his face, it certainly didn't help that his skin was paper white and black veins covered it, almost like cracks in an antique porcelain doll's face. Every click from a keyboard and every scratch of a fountain pen had ceased, allowing their footsteps to echo throughout the room. Theo glanced around at the agents, and frowned slightly,

"Hey, Cynder" Theo muttered,

"What is it?"

"Is the Arrest and Execution order still on my head?"

Cynder frowned, trying to search her memory for the answer,

"Er…"

But before she could answer, Shadow answered

"Yep, you're a walking painted target"

Theo frowned "So does that mean that when all this is over, I'm fucked?"

"Yep, you'll be strapped down for a lethal injection before you know it " Shadow said, some of the GUN agents seemed to have heard, cause some nodded vigorously in agreement, Shadow turned to the watching crowd and yelled,

"Where's Jon McAlister?" the name rang a bell with Theo, he had met Jon, or 'Fever' as he was also known before, but that time, he had been inside a hallucination inside his own mind, Dimitri had said to him that everyone in the dream was based on a real person, so it didn't surprise him that Shadow brought up Jon's name.

"Right here, chief!" a midnight black hedgehog sprung up from his chair, his hand in the air like a school child. Unlike everyone else, he wasn't dressed in uniform; he was dressed in a black leather jacket with a grey shirt underneath with frayed blue jeans with black Chuck Taylor boots, around his waist he wore an old west gun belt with two S&W M500 in their respective holsters. He budged past the multiple chairs and desks that stood in the labyrinth of metal and electronics and jogged towards them, doing a small two fingered salute to the party as he came over, he then noticed Theo, who was looking him over with a look of revulsion and interest; Fever stopped.

"This him?" He asked Shadow, Shadow nodded, Fever turned to look at Theo once more,

"No offence mate, but you look taller in your photos"

"Bite me" Theo grunted, they continued to march forward and through a set of double doors into a crossroads with corridors leading away in all directions, they turned down the farthest left corridor and began to traverse it,

"Right" Shadow said to Cynder "Put them on" she nodded, Theo frowned, not knowing what this statement meant without his immature half getting the better of him. However his doubts faded away when Cynder nodded to Fever who grabbed his wrists in one swift movement and Cynder smashed a pair of handcuffs on his wrists before clicking them shut.

"Oh come on, guys" Theo said "You can't even trust me?"

"Dude, technically you're a wanted criminal" Fever said, his eyes looking calmly into Theos untrustworthy ones "We know about the vendetta against GUN that you seem to have, so we can't take any chances" Fever snorted "Plus, you did murder hundreds of people in Soleanna"

Theo snarled,

"It wasn't murder, it was cleansing of corruption" Shadow looked at him, one eyebrow raised,

"You honestly think that the mass slaughter of hundreds of people, is just pure cleansing?" Shadow smirked "If that's your mentality then I'm glad that we're executing you after this". Cynder gripped his arm, he turned his head to look at her,

"Don't say that Shadow" Cynder said, her kind eyes looking upon Shadow with worry,

"He's a murderer, he _deserves_ to die"

"But still" Cynder said, glancing at Theo slightly before turning back to Shadow "Don't you think that

He's got some good in him?" Shadow looked at Theo, the two sets of blood red eyes boring into each other, each trying to out nerve the other, "He _had_ some good in him, but that died a long time ago".

"You're the one to talk Shadow" Theo said, chuckling, the guards that flanked their party tightened their grip on their weapons and even Fever seemed to move his hands to the holsters around his belt, "I mean, there was that time with Black Doom, where you went rouge, and helped them obliterate most of the eastern seaboard. And for what? To chase up some fabricated lies about your past? Or for revenge?" Shadow rounded on him, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him into the wall, the guards raised their weapons, Fever pulled a S&W M500 out of his holster and cocked it in a split-second.

"You know I'm not proud of what I did" Shadow breathed "I know that I killed and I _hate_ what I was"

"Yeah" Theo said, narrowing his eyes, smiling "But it felt good didn't it?" the two locked eyes, both burning with anger and hate, Fever stepped forward slowly, his gun still drawn and tapped Shadow on the shoulder,

"Easy boss, just let him down" the ebony and crimson hedgehog and the hybrid stared daggers at each other for a few seconds longer before shadow let go of Theos collar, the leather groaning as the pressure eased off. After one final cursed glance, Shadow strode away, Cynder following in his footsteps, Fever looked at Theo as he placed the pistol back in its holster,

"You shouldn't have done that"

"He shouldn't have been such a dick" Theo retaliated

"I heard that" Shadow shouted from the other end of the hall, his arm entwined with Cynders, it seemed that his anger had been short-lived ant that Cynder was the catalyst to its extermination, despite Theos resentments about love, he had to admit that he could help but admire how intricately couples fit together, becoming the parts that the other is missing, like cogs in a machine.

The party kept moving forward, not saying a word now, their multiple footfalls echoing of the passageway of steel and flat-pack walling. They ascended a steep flight of steps and though another set of double doors into another, much larger corridor, which looked a thousand times more luxurious than the one they had just left. The walls, floor and ceiling seemed to be made of white marble, shining like the new morning sun, a long carpet, blood red, stretched out before them as if it was the red carpet at a movie premiere; framed portraits of past GUN commanders hung from the walls on either side, at regular intervals. Their gold painted frames shining from the light of three vast chandeliers that hung from above, at the very end of the hall was the door to Commander Abraham Towers office which over looked the main control centre which resembled something out of a space centre rather than a top secret military base. Their footfalls were muted by the plush surface of the carpet, as they strode down the hall and towards the door, as they approached it, Theo noticed that the corridor branched to the left and down a flight of steps, which led to a set of steel door, which he assumed led into the control centre. However before he could wonder anymore, the party reached the office door, Shadow reached out and knocked three times upon the polished oak surface.

A gruff, old voice sounded from inside,

"Come in"

Shadow twisted the handle until the lock retracted with a click and pushed the door open and stepped forth. Behind a grand mahogany desk, sitting in a plush leather armchair was the Commander himself, since Theo had last seen him, his hair had begun to turn from a dark grey into a steady white, and his diverse eyes had clouded slightly, after decades of service to GUN, the man was starting to show his cracks. His fingers were pressed together with his chin sitting on them, his eyes focused like the eyes of eagle upon the door, completely ignoring his two visitors that sat in smaller chairs opposite him, when the party filed in, the two turned to follow the Commanders gaze, revealing themselves as they did so, Shadow and Cynder greeted them like old friends as did Fever but as Theo was pushed in by Fever, his wrists still bound by the handcuffs, their faces fell from joy into quiet silence, Theo realised that despite last seeing one of them in a dream and the other over 6 years earlier, he was looking at the faces of Carmine Masters and Rouge the Bat. Neither of them had changed much, Carmine still had a long jagged scar running down the right side of his face which passed over his eye, who's iris was a misty white from the damaged that had been caused to it, however his left eye still burned a bright violet. His black fur was clean and neatly tendered and despite the covering on his black t-shirt, Theo swore he could see the green stripes that covered his ribs. His eyes were narrowed with an expression of hate as Theo entered the room, he wondered whether he had a grudge against him, whether Theo had done something to him in his brutal regime. Rouge simply looked at him with a look of disappointment on her face, her beautiful features constricted with sadness and bitter regret; Theo could understand why, when he had first arrived, her and Shadow were responsible for his training and they had educated him into a lethal worrier against evil, but he had abandoned that path and forged his own into the wilderness, GUN never liked it when someone resented their plan.

The Commander dismissed the guards and they swiftly left the room, slamming the door behind them, the others had already seated themselves on plush armchairs, leaving Theo feeling like an idiot for still being up on his feet, he grumbled under his breath and glanced round the room, the back wall was made of glass that looked up tens of futuristic consoles, in the vast room bellow, each with multiple buttons and switches that could mean the difference between the end of the world and the salvation of it, that would be where, if a nuclear war was to ever begin, the nuclear warheads would be launched. Looking around the office further Theo saw nothing out of the ordinary, a 50-inch plasma TV hung from one wall, while multiple computers stood on the Commanders desk humming and whirring to themselves, contently. Commander Towers studied him with inquisitive eyes as if trying to x-ray him for his secrets, finally after a long silence, he spoke

"So now that we are all here and-" he glanced at the handcuffs on Theo's wrists "Attended to, we can finally begin this so-called meeting".

"Hold on a sec" Theo said "I still don't have a chair"

"You've got legs haven't you?" Rouge said, a smirk appearing on her face,

"Yeah but-

"Good, use them" she turned back to Commander Towers before he could respond or retaliate, Theo grumbled and leant against the back wall, a look of boredom on his face,

"Ok old man, continue".

Towers grumbled and continued,

"As all of you are aware, strange symbols have been appearing all over the continent, precisely, 14 hours after appearing, each area has experienced temperature drops of over twenty degrees; however each of these areas consist of a few hundred square metres. Now King Elias thinks that our friend over here" his darkened eyes flickered to Theo "Can help with decoding the cyphers". Carmine snorted, Towers glanced at him, "Something wrong Lieutenant ?"

"No, sir" Carmine grinned, casually leaning back in his chair "It's just that why are we using a murderer to help for the greater good?"

"I'm not a murderer" Theo insisted, not looking at Carmine, who he knew was glaring at him

"Oh yes you are" Carmine growled, in one swift movement, he pushed back his chair and grabbed Theo by his throat and slammed him into the wall, causing Theo's bones to almost jolt out of place,

"Hey" Watch the merchandises" Theo said, through Carmines grip, he felt it tighten, causing Theo to choke,

"You're regime reached by town" Carmine breathed, his face close to Theo's so he could hear, over the yells of protest from Commander Towers and Rouge " It was a quiet little place, just on the coast overlooking the Mercian Sea. I owned a shop in the centre with my beautiful wife and child. I was happy. But that was until the bombings came; they fell Theo, they sounded like whispers on the wind, but then again, whispers can't take out whole buildings can they? My town. My home was destroyed in a matter of hours, we could evacuate but, where was there to go?"

"Carmine, stop it now! We want him alive, not as a corpse!"Cynder yelled, she rush forward and tried to pull one of his hands away from Theo's throat, but they were stuck fast, like magnets attracted to their polar opposites.

"Yeah Carmine" Theo choked "Let go"

"SHUT UP!" Carmine yelled and delivered a swift uppercut to Theos gut, knocking all of the wind out of him, "It's your fault my family are dead, it's your fault that my home is all but ruins! It's your fault my life is in pieces!" And with that he tossed Theo aside like a ragdoll and swiftly moved towards the door,

"Lieutenant!" Towers called

"Bite me" Carmine responded before quickly vacating the room, outside they heard his footsteps sinking away down the corridor despite being cushioned by the plush carpet. All eyes turned to Theo, who was gingerly getting himself up to his feet, nursing the bruise from where Carmine had hit him ; he noticed the pains of eyes watching him,

"What?".

"Looks like we'll have to continue the meeting without Lieutenant Masters" Towers grunted, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Theo got to his feet and stretched, however he was limited by the handcuffs that were still clasped around his wrists.

"If it's all the same with you guys. I'd rather be shown my room and get a good few hours' sleep. I haven't had a good one for a few days".

"But, Arcreus" Towers protested, Theo waved his hand to quieten him

"Yeah, yeah; just send the notes to my room after you're done. Oh yeah, can someone undo these handcuffs, I'm just not into all this kinky stuff". Towers nodded and turned to Shadow

"Take the cuffs of Theo, Shadow"

"But sir" Shadow protested, The Commander gave Shadow a stern look , the hedgehog sighed, pulled out a tiny silver key and, grabbed Theos wrists, he inserted the key into the lock and twisted it, causing the handcuffs to fall away. Theo wrung his hands around his wrists, nursing where the cuffs had just been.

"Thanks"

Shadow glared at him, if it was up to him, he would have thrown Theo into the deepest padded cell and left him there to rot, but The Commander thought that Theo could help them, somehow Shadow highly doubted that.

"Oh yeah" Theo said, turning away from the door and reaching into an inside pocket of his coat, everyone tensed up, expecting him to produce a gun or another instrument of death, instead he pulled out a folded piece of paper which he tossed onto the desk, "The answer to the code on the cyphers, its co-ordinates so I'm sure you'll find them soon enough"

"Why didn't you say this earlier?" Towers yelled, unfolding the paper to view the numbers, with one hand he began to hurriedly type on a keyboard linked to one of the computers.

"Well, you never asked" Theo said, smiling; suddenly there was a loud beeping noise, Towers turned to his computer and frowned,

"You sure that these are the co-ordinates?"

Theo's brows knitted together in puzzlement,

"Yeah I'm sure. Why?"

"Well…" Towers said, hesitantly "Those co-ordinates don't exist"

"Oh shit, you've got to be kidding me" Towers turned the monitor round to face Theo, on screen was a giant flashing warning stating '_Invalid'_ in thick red letters. Fever leaned back in his chair, placing his boots on the table,

"Well that's over, thanks for nothing"

Towers leaned over his desk so he could look at Fever's relaxed expression,

"Feet _off_ my desk, McAlister"

Fever opened one eye in annoyance,

"Hello? Who's the god here?"

Towers glowered,

" So-called 'God' or not, I don't like muddy boots on my desk" he grabbed the heels of his Chuck Taylor boots and pushed them back, off the desk, Fever tipped backwards on his chair, his arms flailing like a madman, before his chair keeled back and he hit the floor with a dull thunk. Rouge giggled, as Fever rose, flustered.

Towers turned back to Theo

"If your certain that these are the co-ordinates, I'll put them through every piece of decoder software we have, then I'll triangulate the relative positions before-" Theo raised a hand for him to be quiet,

"Yeah, I don't care about all the technical mumbo-jumbo, just tell me when you've found something." He turned to the door "I presume the guards will show me my room?"

Towers nodded, "Oh yeah, is it possible that you can get me some things?" the old man looked a bit startled by this,

"Ok, what things?"

Theo turned and began to count them off on his fingers,

"Two Desert Eagles, a spiritual ritual book preferably from the First Great Civilisation, and detailing things about angels and demons, spray paint, a soldering iron, a blowtorch-"

Towers stopped him with his hand raised,

"Give the list to the guards, they will get you what you need; why do you need this stuff anyway?"

Theo turned the handle on the door and opened it, but before stepping out, he smiled,

"I'm going to make myself some brand new weapons". And with that the door closed and the guards that still stood outside lead Theo away back into the bowels of the base.

Meanwhile back in the office, Fever stared at the door which Theo had just left through, Shadow glanced at him,

"Something wrong, Jon?"

"You said to me that Theo was a demon"

Cynder sat upright, her curiosity peaked,

"He is, why? What's wrong?" Towers also leaned in, as if it were the juiciest gossip around,

Fever frowned,

"His aura's not right" Shadow raised an eyebrow,

"Come again?"

"Demons have a certain aura, a certain presence that they give off, like a scent. Theo has it but its mixed with another one, now if I didn't know any better, I would say that the other aura is….well…"

"What?" Towers said intently, his eyes gleaming like a man waiting for something important and unmissable, Shadow and Cynder also waited, tense, on edge, waiting for the news,

"Well sir, I'd say it was mixed with the aura of an angel"

"Angel?" Shadow exclaimed "But they're not real"

"Up until a few years ago, neither were demons" Fever responded, "And only recently have you lot managed to come to terms with the fact that I'm a demi-god". Cynders eyes widened,

"So you mean?"

"Yep" Fever finished "Theo's half-demon, half-angel"…

**A/N: And that's that chapter finished, BY the way, updates will be slow due to exams and shit. Also I would like a couple more OCs from new people, who haven't submitted OC's for this series before, cause that would really benefit the next chapter. If your interested send you're OC's details like this:**

**Name**

**Age**

**Species**

**Fur Colour**

**Eye Colour**

**Backstory (Has to tie in with this story)**

**Description **

**Powers/weapons**

**PS. SPREAD THIS STORY TO ALL WHO YOU KNOW, SO I CAN GET THESE OC REQUESTS WHICH IN TURN WILL BENEIFT THE STORY.**


	6. Silent Invasion

**A/N: Ok on with the next chapter, remember OC's are still being accepted, so if you want yours in this, well you know what you have to do… Also thanks to Bloodrayne666 and Conor T Hedgehog for their support and praise, along with many others like ZiGeNaToR and NinjaKiwi96.**

The men had been given their orders for their mission and as they sat together in the back of a great armoured limousine that quietly crept towards the great, elegant city beyond, through a slowly thinning array of greenery; they didn't discuss anything amongst themselves, they all knew what they had to do and what their jobs were so talking was pointless. All of the men were human, this was vital since Soleanna was rather cagey about allowing Mobians into the city, since they were concerned that Sonic the Hedgehog and his other Mobians accomplices could pose a danger to the security of the state. The cars wheels crunched through loose tarmac, as it rolled up a large road which seemed to be the only way in or out of town, however from the view that the men got from the tinted windows, it was an entrance that was well fortified, CCTV cameras surveyed the scene like vultures trying to pick out a carcass. Meanwhile, at ground level, immaculately uniformed guards stalked the premises, each cradling an AK-47 in their arms like a new-born baby, the man closest to the window gazed out, his eyes searching the gates for any reinforcement or alarm system, he noticed a thin wire attached to the wall at regular intervals, running from a metal box, inches away from one of the hinges of the gate to a small hut to the side of the gate, in which sat a guard, idly reading a newspaper.

This had been the part which their client hadn't told them, she had said that they must look out for some security on the actual gate itself, but exactly what type of security they hadn't been told. However they knew that the gates would be shut for a large majority of the time, because people desiring to leave the state had to have written permission from the Soleanna Home Office, or they had to pay a monthly fee for the right to leave the state whenever they wanted; since the fee was high, and permission was only given to the rich and powerful, many never left the state. The guards approached as they saw the car beginning to taxi towards them, as silent and swift as the wind, the commanding officer, made a sign for the driver to role his window down, however the car rolled on until the guard reached the back window, where the men were sitting in the luxurious interior. The man sitting closest to the window, flicked a switch causing the window to roll down with an idle buzz.

"Do you have your papers?" The guard asked, his narrow, beady eyes scanning the men, as if trying to spot one of them wearing a 'I am a terrorist, kill me now' t-shirt. The man reached down and pulled a black leather briefcase onto his lap,

"What's in there?" the guard demanded, the man sighed,

"The papers, just give me a sec" he opened the case, crucially, he had opened the case so it faced away from the guard, so he couldn't see the contents of it, not that it mattered, the guard thought that the case contained immigration papers. However he was wrong, the case actually contained a high class assortment of weapons, pistols, plastic explosives, even grenades, all of which would be used to help them accomplish the job they had been paid for. The man pulled out a tiny silver pistol from the conglomeration of weapons and in one swift move, raised it and shot the guard, the gun coughed out a small silver dart which hit the guard square in the neck, as the razor sharp point burrowed into his skin, its payload of poison was discharged into the plasma of his bloodstream, the poison was a quick acting paralyser that would eventually stop his heart, and would also cause searing pain, the guard would be in agony but not be able to express or show it in any way possible. The guard swayed, his hand clasped to his neck, before his legs gave way and he crumpled to the tarmac, his gun skittering away across the black asphalt. Stage One had gone entirely as they had planned.

Other guards had heard the collapse of the former and were now rushing towards the paralysed body, in an instant, the occupants of the limousine got out, a façade of panic etched onto their face before rushing over to the body in order to try and aid in an incident they had caused, but of course the remaining guards didn't know that; neither did they notice one of the men carrying a battered black briefcase which he had laid down next to him, he opened the clasps and began rummaging

through,

"Stand back, I'm a doctor" he lied, although his general nimbus seemed to say otherwise. The guards stepped back slightly but their weapons were still raised,

"What's wrong with him?" one of the guards asked, clearly he was new, his weapon was shaking slightly from his nervous grip, and his eyes glanced between his superiors, the body and the man claiming to be a doctor. The false doctor rose from his rummaging and shut the case, apparently empty-handed, but unknown to the guards, he had concealed a silenced P99 pistol up each sleeve, the barrels of which were balanced on the strap of his watch and of the leather bracelet which he wore around his wrists. He bent over the body, his expression pressed together in what he hoped was one of puzzlement; he raised his fingers to the paralysed guard's neck, pushing them underneath the guards own hand which was still clasped to his neck , deceptively feeling for a pulse, however, in this false move, he actually removed the small silver dart from the paralysed man's neck and placed it in his palm, being careful not to cut himself with the needle. He retracted his hand and straightened up, placing the dart in his pocket as he did so.

"Well?" One of the other guards asked "What's wrong with him?", the false doctor smiled,

"I think you should be more concerned about what's going to happen to you". Before they could respond, he flicked his wrists sending the concealed P99 pistols into his hands, in a fraction of a femtosecond, he raised the guns and fired, this impossible speed gave the guards to chance to react,

they were dead before they hit the floor. As the remainder of the men drew pistols from the briefcase and began to move through the perimeter, killing anyone that they found. The false doctor hung back and pulled out a mobile phone, he pressed 3 on speed dial and placed it to his ear, the phone rang twice before it was answered,

"We're in" the man said,

"Good" said a female voice on the end, her accent seemed to suggest that she was from a noble descent, thanks to its rich and measured tone "Now you know what you have to do, convert as many people as you can to our cause, destroy Demons Bane with the explosives I've given you and bring the government to its knees".

"Yes Miss Fitzroy" the man said "One touch right?"

"That right" The women apparently called Fitzroy answered "One touch and they become a demon and mortal hybrid, they're the only extent of your powers mind you, so use them as your soldiers. Don't go charging in by yourselves, you'll get slaughtered". The man looked down at one of his hands and grimaced, as if appalled by what he saw,

"I hate possessing a human, it's like forcing yourself into a sack of rotting meat".

"Quiet!" said Fitzroy "Call me back when it's safe for me to enter the city".

"What about Arcreus?" the man asked, his voice now tinged with a slight note of something like worry.

"Don't get concerned" Fitzroy said "He's currently being held by GUN, I expect he'll have taken the co-ordinates from Mark, but as soon as he catches on to what we are doing, he'll be powerless to stop me"…

Theo swore loudly as he burnt himself yet again on the barrel of the blowtorch, despite the think gloves he wore to protect his hands, thanks to the tinted mask he wore to avoid becoming blinded by the sparks from wielding, he couldn't tell the extent of the damage he had done, but he guessed he had blackened a part of the glove, due to the heat that was dangerously close to the top of his hand. After the initial pain had worn off, he continued his work, for the past few days he had been working on modifying two Desert Eagle pistols into effective, demon killing weapons. The concept for the pistols had been with him for the past few years, but he had never had the resources to plan and build them, but thanks to numerous archives and resources at GUN, he now had his chance. He pressed the trigger on the blowtorch, allow the flame to ignite then shrink, burning a bright blue. Lowering the flame, he allowed the tip to hit the metal disk that lay on top of the initial body of the ivory white pistol, on which he had carved an ancient pictogram; which according the decaying and yellowed pages from a book of enchantment from the First Great Civilisation would form the first step in being able to enchant it. The two separate metal layers began to fuse into one as the heat from the flame melted the surface and made it radiate a crimson aura. Satisfied at a job well done, Theo released the rigger of the blowtorch and tossed it aside, removing his thick gloves and tinted visor as he did so. His earlier suspicion about his burned hand turned out to be correct, as the skin on the top of his right hand was cracked, singed and bleeding, almost like magma seeping through the tectonic plates of the earth.

Swearing under his breath, he abandoned his workbench and strode over to a grimy sink in the corner of the room, still cradling his hand. He clenched the handle of the tap and pulled it sharply downwards, sending torrent of cold water pouring from, the limescale-encrusted tap head, he gingerly placed his hand underneath the cold water and was rewarded with a fresh stab of pain as the water began to cleanse the wound, as he treated the burn, he glanced around the room that for the past two days he had called home; admittedly, he had never expected five star luxury, with extravagant furnishings and a king-sized bed, but this room felt more like a cell than a bedroom. After he had left the Commanders office, he had been led down into the catacombs of GUN and had been placed in a converted dungeon, and he could tell. The walls and ceiling were connected my one giant concave, stone dome that spanned from one corner of the floor to the other, moss and mould hung from, the ceiling accompanied by rusting chains, which gave the impression that this room had had a much more sinister purpose, years before. However some new items had been placed in the room, two harsh flood lights lit the room suspended from newly installed chains, however thanks to the plant life that inhabited most of the ceiling, the light was a faint but noticeable sickly green. Two desks and a workbench had also been placed around the room along with other conveniences like a mini fridge, a thick TV set that looked like it had come from an age long before Theo was born, despite him being 26 years old, and even a battered old jukebox, which Theo had requested had some records which to his astonishment he had got.

After wrapping his hand in a sterile dressing, he walked over to the jukebox and flicked a switch, sending the machine into whirring, flashing life, he clicked another switch and one of the records was pulled by a thin metal arm onto the turntable, where the needle clicked into place and the track began to play, he recognised it as Never Surrender by Combichrist **(A/N: That's also Theo's Theme, I implore you all to listen to it, it's GREAT battle music), **Theo turned back to the two customised pistols that lay on the desk, which had spray-painted black and white respectively, he had also carved some strange runes into the bodies, which allowed one of the enchantments that he had placed on them to hold. He picked up the pistols and as soon as his skin touched the leather grips, the runes began to glow a bright red, and then as the bass kicked in the song, he raised the pistols and fired at the opposite wall, the enchantments had worked, he had enraptured it so that when he fired a bullet, a new bullet would be formed in the magazine in precisely 13 zeptoseconds or 13x10-21 seconds, using a process of destentro-metamorphosis which demons used to make things appear out of thin air, which in theory made the stream of bullets last forever. However this would only work if a demon was using the black pistol, which he had named Lucifer and an angel was using its white counterpart, which he had named Michael; the fact that he could use both easily proved that Mark had been correct about him. He was part-angel, part-demon after all. He had also added features that he hadn't told anyone about, Lucifer could cause more damage to demons and whist he thought he wouldn't need it; Michael could cause more damage to angels.

Some of the stone-work collapsed from the bullets and Theo lowered the pistols,

"Well, at least they work"

He placed them back on the desk and pulled up on old wooden chair and sat down, pulling a closed laptop towards him and opened it up, the machine whirred into life and the screen lit up displaying a rapidly fluctuating number code as the multiple encryption and decoder software sifted through it and tried to decode it, he sighed to himself, his fingers glided over the touchpad as he minimised the coder window, grinning to himself he opened up Space Invaders and began to play, his eyes focused on the screen, he had no need to worry about the coder, the Commander would notify him anyway if anything turned up, he could just kick back and relax and enjoy himself as the technology functioned around him. Suddenly a knock was heard from the door; he quickly closed the game, and called out

"Come in"

The door creaked and swung forward and Rouge walked in, carrying a bowl of Chili with a separate bowl of nachos, along with the appropriate cutlery, upon a silver tray, she admired the environment around her as Theo got up and switched off the music ,

"Hmm, charming" she placed the tray next to Theos arm, shortly before the hedgehog closed the laptop and pushed away from the desk, causing the legs of the chair to squeak against the stone cobbles; he rose to his feet, snatching a nacho from the bowl as he did so and eating it with a loud crunch,

"It's not so bad" said Theo, swallowing "Once you get used to the smell and the damp".

Rouge chuckled,

"Kinda makes you feel like you're on Death Row already, doesn't it?"

Theo frowned "Nope" Rouge raised an eyebrow, Theo elaborated "They won't serve Chili, I'll probably get gruel knowing my luck". Rouge turned and closed the door behind them, leaving her alone with Theo, there was a long silence between the two, Rouge was still leaning against the door, facing away from Theo, as she tried to gather her thoughts; whilst Theo simply stooped down, picked up a fork and began to eat the some of the chili. Finally, after about a minute, Theo replaced the fork, the heat from the Chili still blazing in his mouth and spoke, not facing Rouge, simply staring down into the nachos,

"Are you disappointed in me?"

Rouge was a little taken aback by this,

"What?"

"Everyone else in GUN is disappointed in what I've become, so are you?"

The bat sighed and turned towards Theo, who was gazing at her intently, waiting for an answer,

"Well, yes and no. I'm disappointed that you left GUN's path and set out on your own, more destructive one, but I believe that you have your reasons why you did what you did, it's not like you went full-blown crazy, right?" she chuckled to herself, Theo joined in as well, however he had been questioning his own sanity for a number of days now, he thought that his reasons had been valid but as Shadow and Fever had pointed out to him, killing hundreds of people didn't seem like a firm basis for a crusade against corruption and degradation. He wondered in this was what Dimitri had meant with the statement he had said to him five years earlier,

'_Give it five years then you'll get what you want. But the question is, when those five years are up, will you kill me? Or thank me?' _

Could this be what Dimitri wanted? For him to fall into his own obscenities? For him to lose his own track and for him to come sprinting towards him like a lamb to the slaughter? Dimitri had been the one to give him life once again, but he was also the one responsible for sending him on his task, so was he the one responsible for everything?

"I don't know Rouge" Theo grunted, his expression dark and foreboding "I'm not sure whether I'm going crazy, or whether my past is really that fucked up". Rouge walked towards him, her heels clattering on the cobbles and placed her hand on his shoulder,

"So you know about the Angel thing?" Theo turned startled,

"Wait a minute, how did _you_ know?"

"McAlistair, he recognised the aura or something" Rouge stated, Theo snorted;

"That's very…..him" Rouge pulled on his shoulder so they were now standing facing each other, aquamarine into red.

"You speak as though you know him, but you two just met, so how is that-"

Theo cut her off

"I met him in the hallucination that Dimitri put me under, remember?"

"You do realise that I wasn't there on that mission?" Theo frowned then he remembered,

"So you weren't". Suddenly without warning, Rouge leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips, she quickly pulled away and looked at Theo, who was gazing at her, stunned by what she had done.

"Er...why did you?" Theo questioned but Rouge placed a finger on his lips and silenced him,

"I haven't been with anyone since I dated Shadow" she walked her fingers up his chest, "And I could use a bit of evil. Plus there's only what? Two years between us? So let's just have a night to ourselves." She winked at him "If you catch my meaning". Theo smirked as Rouge pulled the vest off his chest, as he pulled the heart-shaped chest piece of her suit, revealing bare breasts, as the bat traced the multiple scars that covered his chest with her fingers, Theo grasped one of her breasts with his hand, weighing it around in his palm; causing her to groan lustfully. So many others at GUN would kill to be where he was now, and now he had her all to himself for the night. He'd better make the most of it".

"Yeah I can roll with that" Theo grinned as Rouge dropped to her knees and began to unfasten his belt "This will probably be the last sex I ever have, since I'm a dead man and all. So let's get rocking"….

**A/N: That's as close as you're going to get to a lemon so don't pester me any further. Also if you have any more OC's to send just PM them to me and I'll see what I can do. **


	7. Fear No Evil, See No Evil

**A/N: Ok on with the next chapter.**

Shadow the Hedgehog was sat at his desk, in his tiny cubicle, staring at his computer as he monotonously answered emails and cleaned out and sorted files, his brain saturated with a lack of sleep that always occurred when he was working in the early hours of the morning. He had always loathed the fact that part of his work at GUN involved sitting at a desk, doing boring tasks that any receptionist would do for half the pay and double the fun, Commander Towers had assured him that he was meeting ' the concerns of the people', but the way he saw it, half the time when he answered the phone calls of the general public or public services, he would normally get a response of either '_Hang on, is this Shadow the Hedgehog?' _or _'My god, it's really you!'_ The latter would normally be followed by tonnes of fan-girl screams of joy and then compliments about his strength and body, to which he would grunt, then slam the phone down. He had also seen that some of his colleagues like Fever or Carmine were much better at it than he was, partly because they weren't incredibly famous and didn't have pictures of themselves plastered on every Teen Girl magazine you could find. Theo had been good at it as well, but he highly doubted he could ensue the same effect now, without screams and cries of mercy emanating down the phone line.

The ebony hedgehog sent off another e-mail, before sighing and grasping the large cup of coffee that he had poured himself earlier, and taking a mighty swig, some coffee droplets missing his mouth and dribbling down his chin and onto his chest. A sudden knock on his cubicle wall made him jump; he turned and saw Fever waiting patiently outside the cubicle.

"Oh" Shadow said, placing the coffee cup back on the desk "What is it?"

Fever shrugged,

"Nothing much, just wanted to see what you make of this, y'know just for procedure". The midnight black hedgehog sidled in; he picked up a TV remote that lay on the corner of the desk and pointed it absentmindedly at the TV, switching it one; there was a buzz of static then the picture began to fade in; Shadow spun on his chair to face the screen, whist Fever perched himself on the edge of his desk. Raising the remote, Fever began to flick through the channels, commentating idly to himself as he did so,

"No…..No….Nope…..Oh I need to record that…..Oh hell no…..ah here we go". Fever stopped his channel surfing on a live news report where a distressed female reporter was addressing a shaking camera, even though it was the early hours of the morning, the fires and infernos lit the violence in the street behind her. Shadow leaned forward in interest, whist Fever frowned, "Well, it's certainly intensified since last I saw it". Shadow shushed him as he avidly listened to the report".

"I am here just outside the Republic of Soleanna, where wholesale violence is raging across the region as the activist group; Heathen, begin a hostile takeover of the city" A massive explosion went off behind her, causing the reporter to loose balance slightly, the camera zoomed in on the ruins the newly destroyed building, deformed shadows darted through the billowing smoke into the wreckage, screams and gunfire filled the air along with inhuman roars of delight, the camera turned back to the reporter, she was beginning to become more panic-ridden as if wanting nothing more than to leave the war zone "Their demands are as yet unclear but Heathens leader, Una Fitzroy has stated to any who dares questions her regime that this is a measure to 'exterminate the evil in this city'. The first reported attack was at 1pm yesterday afternoon on a detective agency known as 'Demons Bane' with a full force invasion beginning just after 10 in the evening. Some vague reports are even coming in that the invaders aren't even Mobian or Human but are instead creates who feast upon living flesh, however these reports are yet to be". Another explosion coursed through the street behind her as the whole front of one elegant stone building tore itself way, revealing its burning and glowing innards, inside more mutated shades killed each other mercilessly, their bodies been kicked out of the open face of the building and into the smouldering remains below. The reporter stared in horror at the violence then suddenly turned and ran passed the camera heading in the opposite direction; it looked like her will had finally snapped. The camera crew turned and ran after her, heading towards a large bridge, illuminated with bright streetlamps in the night, which crossed a wide grey river back into the black and desolate countryside, most was a blur since the camera was shaking and jolting and the sound was filled with explosions, gunfire and screams, the reporter still clutched the microphone and began to speak as she ran, occasionally looking over her shoulder to look at the camera.

"I can't stand it anymore. We _have_ to leave; we _need_ to get out of here! This was a stupid job in the first place" the crew reached the bridge and began to scramble blindly over barricades that had been placed in front of its mouth made out of cars and other scrap metal. The camera adjusted itself as the cameraman began to scramble upwards, one of his clasping hands emerging on screen, suddenly as the cameraman heaved himself and his cargo over, a gargantuan blast went off at the opposite end of the bridge, causing it to tear up the asphalt as the bridge morphed and constricted from the blast wave, the shock wave hit the crew, blasting them backwards as it tore the ground from their very feet, the camera and its holder were blasted backwards off the barricade before landing with a sickening crunch on the road below, the camera was on its side on the road, watching as the cameraman's limp hand twitched slightly in his last moments of life, whist his blood began to pool around the camera. Then the image turned to static.

Fever sighed and turned the TV off,

"What the fuck's happening there?"

Shadow growled and turned away back to his computer,

"No idea, but I am sure that innocent people are dying and they need our help, however this time I know that our squad won't be enough" he typed on a few keys "Let's see what Theo's up to" he opened up a new window and as he saw the grey hedgehog and the white bat frantically copulating together, his face began to go more disgusted by the second, the moans and yells of pleasure driving into his mind like a vice, Fever saw the CCTV and burst out laughing,

"Well he's certainly…..quick"

Shadow switched off the computer and rose to his feet; he strode past Fever and out of his cubicle, and into the corridor, Fever hot on his heels,

"We need to call the Freedom Fighters"

Fever nodded,

"Right, ok; but we'll need to be quick, if we don't hurry; the city will be in pieces by the time we get there"

"You think I don't know that?" Shadow challenged, turning around to him "But we'll need to approve it with The Commander first".

"Approve it? Everyone will be dead when we arrive, there will be _nobody _to save!" Fever yelled

"SHUT UP!" Shadow shouted at him, his eyes blazing "Go get Arcreus, then contact the Freedom Fighters in New Metropolis, then report to the Commanders office, with Arcreus in toe, hopefully we can leave with everyone by late morning. Is that understood?" ; Fever knew he could destroy him if he wanted to, he was a God and Shadow was a mortal biological mistake, he wouldn't stand a chance, but at the same time Fever knew that Shadow was desperate and stressed, and Fever could tell that he didn't know what to do. Fever nodded,

"Ok"

Shadows expression softened,

"Thanks"

The two parted ways and began to walk off towards their respective objectives…

**14:27pm- Soleanna:**

The chopper darted through the air like an insect, its twin blades cutting through the air as it carried the metal behemoth across the sky. Inside, Theo leaned out of the open cargo door, his hand wrapped around a Kevlar loop to prevent him from falling out, the helicopter turned to avoid hitting the remains of a suspension tower that had once been part of the massive suspension bridge that had spanned the great river below, but which had been destroyed during the night, his eyes were shielded by a pair of golden Aviator sunglasses, which sparkled in the late morning sun. On bored with him were Shadow, Rouge, Fever, Carmine and Cynder, each was supplied with their respective weapons or gadgets, Theo was of course supplied with his scythe and Michael and Lucifer; Several Freedom Fighters had also been flown over for the mission which included Sonic, who was staring out of the open door at the carnage below them, Tails who was busy typing away on a laptop and Blaze who like most of the others was sitting in complete silence. Theo tried to keep as little eye contact with Blaze as was humanly possible, last time they had met, Theo had escaped a Dark Legion facility and descended into a rage-fuelled crusade, at one time seven years ago, it seemed like the two were building a relationship, but Theo's own incentives prevented it from going further.

"So who's Heathen?" Tails interrupted, looking up at Shadow, the hedgehog finished disassembling an assault rifle and looked at Tails,

"Heathen's an extreme activist group led by a ruthless cat called Una Fitzroy, her regime is rather similar to someone here" he nodded towards Theo,

"Hey" Theo said "I never had an entire army, I did it all on my own steam"

"You still killed all in your way" Sonic remarked "Even the innocent". Theo turned, Sonic's face mirrored in his sunglasses,

"Don't worry, after all this is over, I'm going to be executed, right Shads?"

Shadow winced at the butchery of his name, but then nodded,

"Anyway, they've been quiet for a number of years, but they have never attacked this quickly or in these numbers, something's not right."

"Well I guess we need to put a stop to it" Carmine said, pulling out two hilts of swords and spinning them around in his hands, in an instant, the air around them became concentrated and seemed to focus on Carmine, suddenly two blades made of pure wind appeared on the end of the hilts. Cynder grinned,

"Nice trick"

"Thanks" Carmine replied, grinning slightly. The helicopter shuddered as it began to descend towards the end of the destroyed suspension bridge, parts of which were still burning; Shadow passed two Commando assault rifles to Sonic and Tails along with magazines, Sonic recoiled as if Shadow was offering him still pulsing entrails,

"No way Shadow, I would be caught dead with one of those things" Shadow sighed,

"Sonic, it's either you take something you wouldn't be seen with or you'll go out there, completely unarmed and get shot or torn apart; make your choice". He gestured to the open door as he talked. Tails gently tapped Sonic on the shoulder,

"Look Sonic, I hate to say this but…we have to use them, its kill or be killed" the cobalt hedgehog whipped around to look at his best friend, his eyes flickering between his eyes and the gun cradled in his arms,

"Tails, you know me, I _can't_ physically kill someone"

"But you've let plenty of others die in your name" Fever said, as he polished an elaborate bronze longsword, he wasn't directly looking at Sonic but his words were clear "It's time to stop hiding in the shadows whilst others die for you". Sonic was speechless as he thought Fevers statement over, finally he spoke once more,

"But killing will turn me into him" Sonic objected nodding to Theo, Theo turned and sighed, exasperated,

"What is this, 'Pick on Me' Day?" Shadow cut in, throwing the gun into Sonics chest before he could respond,

"Just point and shoot, when you're out of bullets, reload"

But before Sonic could object, something launched from the roof of a building near them and came rocketing towards them, Carmine saw it and yelled

"RPG!"

Theo's eyes widened,

"Shit"

The RPG hit the tail of the helicopter, disintegrating it; sending debris blasting outwards, the shock threw the inhabitants out of their seats, the helicopter began to spin uncontrollably as it fell out of the sky, Theo steadied himself on the strap, as the helicopter's erratic movement almost threw him off his feet, he turned and yelled at the others,

"Everyone, get ready to jump out!"

"What!" Blaze yelled

"Just do it!"

As the metal machine span out of control, Theo prepared himself to jump as the jagged ledge of the remaining bridge got closer and closer to them, if he was too high, he would fall and snap his shins or at least break his ankle, but if he was too low, the downward force of the helicopter would cause him to overbalance and fall either into the sea or to be cut up by the helicopter blades, and if he jumped at the wrong moment, he would be facing the wrong direction and he would fall into the sea. He began to count down,

"3, 2, 1, GO!"

All of them jumped, throwing themselves out of the burning wreckage, as they hit the ground, Theo rolled to absorb the impact, but his sunglasses cracked as he hit the ground. He got to his feet and threw the glasses off his face and on to the ground, the wreckage of helicopter hit a metal support of the condemned bridge and exploded in a bright propane fuelled blast, Theo breathed heavily and grinned to himself,

"Well at least we are still alive". Shadow joined him on the ledge, the two watching the wreak fall into the water, the flaming oil floating on the water,

"Come on" Shadow said "We need to get into the city"

"Right" Theo grunted, pulling the scythe from his back and turned around to join the others. Fever was already alert, his eyes scanning each building for the source of the RPG, he crouched down low behind an abandoned car and motioned for the others to do so,

"Up there" Fever whispered, pointing with his thumb to a charred two-story house that looked like it had belonged to a family before hell had visited "The RPG's in there. We need to go round it if we can them we can-"

"Screw this" Blaze muttered, before swiftly rising to her feet, flames beginning to lick around her left hand, in a flick of a switch, she launched a fireball at the buildings window; the streaking inferno hit the wooden frame setting it ablaze, the conflagration spread blackening the wood before flames erupted from it, in seconds the top floor collapsed sending sparks flying into the air, floating upon the smoke into the crystal blue sky.

"There" she said "Job done" The others looked at each other with puzzlement then stood up slowly checking for any other signs of activity, Theo's grip on his scythe tightened as he rose, wary of an ambush, however nothing moved except debris and litter being carried on the breeze. They began to walk slowly down the street each checking every corner and every interior of each derelict car for supplies or any sign of life only to be greeted by the already rotting corpses of the dead, their blood congealing on the interiors that they had once cherished and cleaned. Shadows face darkened with each body that they past, despite all his years in GUN, he had never got used to the sight of bodies or the stench of death, they reminded him of the massacre that had taken place aboard the Space Colony ARK over 50 years earlier, the same massacre where his best friend Maria had been killed, he shuddered at the memory. Cynder noticed his unease hand placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder; Shadow looked over his shoulder and gripped Cynders hand and squeezed it, then brushed it away as they continued walking down the blackened ruins of the suburban street.

Carmine bent down and checked the pulse of young child that lay still in the gutter, after a few seconds he rose and shook his head,

"Damnit, are there any survivors here?" Fever looked around at the ruined family homes and decimated cars; he stepped over several bodies and turned another over with the blade of his sword, grimacing at its burnt features.

"I doubt it, Heathen were efficient"

"Hang on" Sonic said, he pointed to the end of the road where about half a dozen figures were moving towards them, he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Hey! Over here!" There was no response but the figures began to move faster towards them, however Theo noticed a few irregularities in the figures, they seemed to be too tall and their arms a little too long. Theo recognised the walk and the manner of how the moved, He widened his stance and pulled out Lucifer and placed in his right hand, the scythe in his left,

"Guys, get ready"

"Why" Carmine asked, the grip on his wind swords tightening

"They're Demons"

Sonic turned to Theo "What?"

"You heard me, now less talking, more shooting"

Everyone who had a firearm in the group opened fire, sending cascades of bullets towards the approaching demons, hitting them and sending their blood streaking outwards, however as one fell, more appeared out of the shadows, soon their numbers were fast approaching thirty and still they kept moving. All of them seemed to have a human skeleton on the outside of their bodies almost like armour, bones bring repeated and joined until a thick bony mesh covered them, each wore a mask made out of a hollowed-out skull, their glowing inhuman eyes peering through the eye sockets whilst their roaring mouths sat between the open vacant jaws of the human skull, Each carried buster swords made out of bone, with human teeth jutting out at intervals from the main blade to cause more damage. Theo aimed with Lucifer at an approaching demon and fired an enchanted bullet, which buried itself into one of its eye sockets, the demon screamed as black blood pumped from its burst eye and ran down the bone mask ,

"Oh SHUT UP!" Fever yelled, thrusting the bronze longsword into the demons stomach, smashing through its bone exoskeleton and tearing through the soft flesh beneath, black blood spraying all over his face and chest, the demon screams stopped as it collapsed dead onto the cobbles. Fever grinned at Theo then his expression turned to one of shock,

"Look out behind you!"

Theo turned just in time to see a demon bring his sword down onto him, he quickly rolled out of the way allowing the sword to slam into the ground, cracking the stonework, whist the demon lifted the sword back out of the ground, Theo placed Lucifer back in its holster and gripped the scythe with both hands.

He lashed out, the curved blade slicing through the air like a knife through hot butter, the weapon glinted in the sunlight like a divine entity; however the demon was quicker than he had anticipated, it blocked the scythe with its sword, snarling and suddenly, the two were locked in a duality, each pushing their weapon against the other, the demon snarled at him, its sharp teeth bared, the rotting stench of its breath overpowering Theo. Theo roared and kicked out at the demons knee, forcing it sideways and dislocating it with a sickening crunch, the demon crumpled to its knees before Theo lashed out and drove the blade into its chest, spraying the blade with jet-black blood, its bone armour becoming splintered as the blade drove deeper into its chest, the demon grabbed the handle and slowly pulled the blade out of its chest, minute pieces of its maxilla armour falling away as the blade was removed from its chest, its dying eyes looked at Theo in what seemed to be a look of mercy, its mouth opened allowing its blood to steam out of it, staining its teeth; with another final roar of effort, Theo launched a push kick which hit the demon in its face, snapping its neck, it fell on its side, finally dead.

Theo looked around the fight around him, but all were preoccupied, both friends and foes locked in mortal combat, Carmine was even fighting two at once, slicing away the armour with repeated strikes and using his mastery of wind to tear some of their pieces off in a bloody storm. Shadow and Cynder each seemed to be revelling in the madness of the fight, each drenched in the demons blood and some of their own, each using once of Cynders swords (Which had originally belonged to Theo), to slice apart the demons, as Theo watched, Cynder jumped up onto the demons back, whist avoiding its scrabbling arms before ramming the blade into the flesh at the back of the demons neck, the blade tore through the front of its throat, along with a torrent of black blood, the demon gargled, swaying on its feet until it toppled forward, Shadow sidestepping out of the way to avoid being crushed by the behemoth. Fever looked as relaxed as ever, casually blocking and countering all of his opponents strikes, not an ounce of his own blood on him, his opponent roared and raised it sword, preparing for a viscous downward strike, Fever grinned before driving his foot upwards, all his weight on his other leg, and slamming it into the demons skull, smashing it's jawbone and sending it crumpling to the ground instantly, the Olympian looked over his prey with a mixture of satisfaction and contempt, his golden eyes glinting in the god-like power he now had, in a flash, he whipped out the S&W Revolver, aimed it and fired one bullet which drove into the demons brain, killing it instantly. Theo's observations were interrupted by a roar, he turned to see two demons moving towards him, their cold eyes fixed on him, he grinned and beckoned with one hand,

"Let's dance"

However whist others were getting on just fine, Sonic seemed to be struggling, his inexperience with firearms put him at an disadvantage, most of the bullets he shot didn't even hit the demons, and each time he reloaded, he fumbled with the new magazine and it was only by his speed and agility that he managed not to become impaled or turned into minced hedgehog. He aimed and fired, the bullets bouncing off the armour of the demon which gave a throaty chuckle at his incompetence. It brought its sword down in a downwards strike, Sonic dodged to the side, but this time the demon had moved its sword at the last moment, knocking the hedgehog over, sending the gun flying out of his hand, he landed heavily on his back, the breath knocked out of him, the demon pinned him down with a foot of his chest, more pressure being applied to his sternum by the minute. Sonic raised his arms in front of his face, waiting for the inevitable bliss of death,

"NOOOOOO!"

Tails darted forward, diving towards the demon, firing bullets like a madman, the demon recoiled in pain, taking its foot off Sonic, who took in a great lung-full of air now that his lungs were free; the fox grabbed onto some of the many bones which made up the creatures left side, hanging of them like a monkey hangs from a tree, still yelling, he fired the gun between the gaps in his bone armour, tearing apart the flesh and sending blood spraying over Tails' fur. The demon fell forwards, its armour cracking as it hit the stone road, sending pieces of it skittering over the cobbles, Tails clambered from underneath the motionless demon and rose to his feet, blood seeping from his grazed elbows and knees, he tossed the gun aside and walked over to Sonic, who was still lying on his back, breathing heavily. The demons had vanished, their fallen comrades now lying bleeding and motionless on the cobblestones, their blood seeping through the gaps, everyone now looked around at each other's blood soaked complexions, giving small grins of acknowledgement that they were thankfully still alive, Theo placed one of his boots on the back of a demons neck before firing one bullet from Lucifer into its skull, just to make sure it was dead, after he was satisfied, he removed his boot and strapped the scythe back onto his back, spitting some of his own blood out of his mouth with flowed from gashed lip. Tails helped Sonic onto his feet, both relieved that the madness was over… for now, the other surrounded them each replacing their weapons in their respective holders or scabbards, each eyed each other to check that nobody had a serious or obvious injury that could cause them even more harm than had what had already been caused.

"I've never seen you, well that….rabid, Tails" Blaze said, blood trickling down the side of her head from a small but deep cut on her temple, Tails grinned, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment,

"Well it was either lose Sonic or do something about it" he glanced at his best friend who now was grinning back at him "At least I saved him".

"Jesus buddy, you're gonna make me cry if you keep talking like that" Sonic said, spreading his arms wide "Come here" the two embraced in a brotherly hug, Theo grunted and looked behind him to the remainder of the street beyond, he knew that the demons wouldn't be gone for long and due to their earlier defeat, they would return in greater numbers. They needed to move, he glanced at Fever, the midnight black hedgehog caught his eye and they both nodded, understanding what needed to be done. Tails retracted from the hug and grinned, stepping back slightly, for a few moments nothing moved and nothing was done, however Theo saw something move out of the corner of his eye but before he could react, it was too late, one of the demons was still alive, its semi-conscious arm gripped its sword before thrusting it upwards, straight through the fox's back. The blade pierced through Tails' chest, now stained a dark crimson, with its multiple appendages causing even more harm to be done, everything seemed moved in slow motion, Sonic ran forward, his hand outstretched as if he could do anything to prevent it but he was powerless like all of them, the demon dropped, the last of its life force finally leaving it, leaving the sword still impaled through Tails' chest, his fur now rapidly turning red, the fox collapsed to his knees, his hands still gripped around the sodden blade that now shone crimson with his blood, he looked up at Sonic and raised his arm, reaching out to him, his mouth opened blood constricting his airways, however Theo swore he heard a single word,

"…Sonic…"

The kitsune pitched forward and lay still, blood pooling around him, Sonic yelled in desperation, tears in his eyes, he reached the foxes motionless body and pulled the blade out of him, bringing forth a torrent crimson life-essence, he turned him over, so the foxes cold complexion was touched by the warm afternoon sun, Sonic slapped Tails cheeks as if trying to wake him up,

"Tails? Buddy? Wake up! Please, wake up!" Sonic croaked as he tried to rouse his friend, Shadow gently stooped over and placed his hand on Sonics shoulder and tried to pull him to his feet, Sonic struggled and screamed, but Shadow tried to reassure him,

"Sonic, you can't help him, he's gone" Sonic reeled round his eyes red and puffy, tears streaming down his cheeks,

"No" he shook his head "He can't be". Rouge knelt down and placed two fingers on the foxes neck, after about five seconds she stood up and said the two words that nobody wanted to hear,

"He's dead"

"NOOOOO!" Sonic screamed, elbowing Shadow in the gut causing him to drop the cobalt hedgehog swearing under his breath, and threw himself over his dead friends body, weeping madly. Over his sobs, Theo heard someone whispering to him,

"Hey, psst, over here"

He turned and saw a brown weasel in an alley behind him, her brown waxed jacket was torn and stiff with blood, and her jeans were ripped and frayed, a jet black 50. Caliber Sniper Rifle was strapped to her back, her dark green eyes flickered between the road and Theo, she beckoned with her hand.

"Hey guys" Theo said, still keeping eye contact with the weasel, the others turned and looked at her,

"Who are you?" Carmine said,

"My names Jemima, Mr Masters" Carmine was taken aback

"How do you know my name?"

She smiled,

"I know a lot about all of you" she looked past the group to Sonic cowering over Tails' body, "And, I'm so sorry for your loss". At this Sonic became enraged, he stop to his feet pushed through the crowd until he was face to face with Jemima,

"You're not, you didn't even know him, so why the hell should we trust you or even take your word?"

Jemima chuckled,

"You're right, on both counts. True, I didn't know him but that was a little thing called common respect that I just did, and you can't trust me and I can't trust you lot either, so it's either come with me to a safe place where you can get help or sit out here and wait for those creatures to turn up again". Shadow considered her offer then nodded, he looked around at his group, who nodded in agreement,

"Ok" Shadow muttered,

"But" Sonic protested, glancing back at the body of his friend

"We have to go Sonic before more demons turn up, and we're gonna have to leave Tails' body, it'll slow us down" Sonic glanced between the darkly sincere face of Shadow and Tails body, his blood now congealing on the pavement, he took a gasping breath then nodded.

"Good" Jemima said "Follow me" she ran off, Theo hot on her heels with the remainder of the group following, all except Sonic, he turned and gave one final look at the foxes body, all the great memories he had had of him and all the adventures they had had together, his eyes welled up once more, and he looked away not baring to face that sight once more,

"Goodbye Tails" he whispered before, hurriedly running after the remainder of the group, leaving nothing but the wind in his wake and the ghost of a lost future…

**A/N: I may get tonnes of hate for killing off Tails but that will play a key role later in the story, remember to review with your thoughts also, I'm no longer** **accepting OC's but all OC's that have been accepted so far will still be in the story.**


	8. A Demonic Agenda

**A/N: On with the next chapter, also my exams are also finished so updates should be more frequent. I am also working on a cover for Rapture thanks to the new Image Uploader**

Jemimas hideout was located inside an old run-down cargo monorail station, which at one time must have been a bustling workplace, where cargo was unloaded, and placed into the railcars to be send speeding down the monorail and shipped to other cargo stations across the city but now, it was silent and unmoving, a single railcar hug in the small room, its sliding wooden door open to reveal a make-shift bed in which Jemima slept. The windows had been boarded up and each door had an unfathomable amount of locks fastened to their surfaces. Boxes of supplies and ammunition lay around the corners of the room, often with half melted candles covering their surfaces, since the electricity had gone out the day before, blankets covered all the available floor space that wasn't taken up by a handful of desks near the back of the room or by a strange alter that was covered in arcane tomes and strange plants.

The group had been there for around three days, surviving and living in the small service station, all silently mourning Tails' death, They had managed to get an old radio going with the help of some fairly drained batteries, after tuning to GUN's wavelength frequencies, Shadow had sent a message requesting immediate extraction, however there was no immediate response, this had led some into an even lower humour than before, Sonic even proclaimed that they wouldn't ever get out of Soleanna and that they would all die there, Theo just ignored him and smoked quietly in a corner, thinking a plan through in his head. Eventually, the next morning they got a reply, a crackly message that stated that their request had been received and that extraction would be there in 46 hours, the tension that had crushed the group lifted slightly with this proclamation, finally relieved to hear some good news for once. Again Theo ignored it, he still sat on the floor, his legs dangling over the platform and smoked cigarette after cigarette still piecing together the plan, his eyes running over the monorail and how the rail seemed to plummet and turn like a rollercoaster, falling tens of feet at a time before swiftly climbing over a building. His eyes narrowed, smoke curling in front of them and continued to plan. It was now nightfall and Theo was still sat in the same place he had been sat all day, with his lower legs dangling over the platform, cigarette in his mouth watching over the fires and riots that were emblazoned on the streets below. He heard something moving behind him, he looked over his shoulder to see a black panther who had been staying with Jemima called Sarith Blackburn, despite also being a demon hunter like Theo; he kept constant reminders of his religious heritage and his role as a priest. He wore a black pastors uniform complete with a white dog collar, scuffed dress shoes and a silver crucifix-like symbol hanging from a chain around his neck, however he had spiced things up a little with a black and grey ¾ coat that came just above his knees, his main weapon was a large black cross, with long hooked spikes on each end, besmirched bones lined the crucifix and a blackened human skull, its jaws hanging open was embedded into the centre of the cross, Theo thought his weapon looked brutal but Sariths looked like it had been forged in the very depths of the abyss. Around his waist hung a belt on which was attached the sheaths of four daggers each emblazoned with the cross symbol around his neck.

His grey eyes looked at Theo with a mixture of concern and apprehension,

"Can't sleep either?" he asked, his voice low to avoid waking the others that slept in the back of the station, covered in blankets and duvets, Theo snorted, causing a wisp of smoke to trickle out of his nose and to float off to join the larger columns of smoke in the sky,

"Yeah, something like that". Sarith sat next to him on the plat form, his lower legs dangling over the edge; at first he said nothing as they both watched the fires burn merrily below, then Sarith broke the silence,

"Nice to see there's still some resistance" he gestured at the fires below them, Theo smirked and tossed the stub of the cigarette out into the night,

"Yeah, but God help them" Sarith shook his head,

"God doesn't come into it, Mr Arcreus, Skill with a firearm or blade is their faith now"

"I shouldn't be here" Theo said, he pulled out Michael and held it in his hands, the runes upon its body glowing a bright blue as he graced it with his touch, "I should be down there fighting, not hiding up here waiting for rescue". Sarith turned from the fires and glanced at Theo,

"I know how you feel, but those demons are too strong and too fast, even for you as one of their own" Theo grunted and stared out into the distance,

"Why are they even here?"

Sarith raised an eyebrow "Come again?"

"When demons have attacked before, they've been looking for something" Theo elaborated "But what's here that would make them begin a full force invasion?" Sarith frowned, stroking his chin in thought, murmuring to himself, then a thought suddenly came into his mind,

"Hang on"

"What is it?" Theo asked, his gaze now focused intently on Sarith, the panther turned to him,

"I think I know what they're after"

"What?" Sarith got to his feet and walked away stepping over the sleeping bodies and picked up a small crate stamped with the same symbol that hung around his neck, he set it down next to Theo and sat back down.

"What's this?" Theo asked, Sarith pulled open the clasps on the box and pulled off the lid, inside packed in saw-dust was a metal arm-brace branded with the cross like symbol: on the wrist of the brace was two metal wheels, each with hooks attached to their circumference, on the smaller wheel was attached a chain, similar to a bike chain which lay inside two metal tubes which ran to a sleek metal box with was covered by the metal surface of the brace, which Theo presumed was a motor of some sort. On the side of the brace was a folded away handle which popped up with a press of a button on the side of the brace which also caused the arm which the metal wheels where attached to extend.

"Put it on" Sarith said, Theo obeyed, pulling the brace on and tightening the straps around his wrist.

"You still haven't told me what this is" Sarith pulled on one of his own and looked at Theo,

"It's a grapple, it'll allow you to ride the rails" he gestured at the metal tracks that fell downwards and looped towards the city "Without using one of those railcars. The Brotherhood of Aurora were working on them-"

"The who?" Theo interrupted, Sarith sighed then elaborated,

"The religion I belong to, it's called The Brotherhood of Aurora; it's kind of like a fusion between scientific thinking and religion, anyway, we were working on these in order to get quickly from point A to B if our skills were needed."

"And what skills would they be?" Theo said, grinning, pressing the button and grabbing the handle that popped up, testing the weight of it on his arm, he noticed that the handle had a long thin button on its surface, he held it down and the motor hummed into life, causing the wheel to spin at an insanely fast speed.

"You're not the only demon hunter in the world, Mr Arcreus; The Brotherhood are all dedicated demon hunters, but…..we were out matched by the demons that initially invaded Soleanna" he gulped "I think I'm the only one left". Theo glanced at him,

"I'm sorry"

"No you're not" Sarith said "You're just saying that". Theo turned away, slightly guilty, however he continued to think,

"It's clear the demons aren't after these. So what are they after then?" he asked, glancing at Sarith, the panthers expression darkened,

"The Skull of Diamonds"

"I thought that was only a legend" Theo said, astonished. According to legend, the demon overlord, Rafael came to the mortal world and took procession of his first vessel; however the vessel was unable to take him in, as a consequence, the vessels body became crystallised and unmoving; causing Rafael to leave his body, over thousands of years the crystal statue degraded until only the skull remained, it is now said to give any mortal the power of a god.

"It's real" Sarith said "And we're going to go and get it back"

"And just leave everyone else?" Theo enquired

"They have evac on the way; we need to get that skull back before Heathen gets their hands on it". The two stood to their feet and looked at the rails that ran down towards the burning city, Theo grinned nervously,

"So what? Run and jump?"

"Basically" Sarith stated,

"Hell of a fall" a voice said from the darkness, the two whipped around to see Jemima stepping out of the shadows now fully dressed as if she was ready to go out into the city, Theo walked over to her,

"I presume you want to come with us?" he asked, Jemima pulled the 50. Calibre Sniper Rifle off her back and examined it, peering down the scope and checking the magazines,

"Well let's see, I'm fully loaded, gun prepped and ready to kick some demon ass, so yeah, I'm coming with you. But I won't be alone" out from behind her walked Blaze also similarly prepared to leave their squalid sanctuary, Theo walked in circles gazing at the ceiling grinning and chuckling to himself at the madness of it all,

"Oh no no no, Jemima maybe but Blaze? I thought we were risking it just by sending out two people."

"Why not? I can fight, I know how to defend myself" Blaze retaliated, Theo groaned and facepalmed himself,

"It's not that, I just…I just don't want you to get hurt"

"But you'd be happy for me and Jemima to die at your feet?" Sarith retorted, Theo let out an exasperated sigh, then froze, a thought suddenly in his head,

"Hang on. How come the others haven't woken up, I mean we weren't exactly quiet" Jemima gave a sheepish look then looked down, shuffling her feet,

"I kinda drugged them"

"You drugged them?" Theo said in disbelief, "You simply drugged them?"

"Yeah, I knew that there was a chance that the others could wake up and prevent us from leaving, the drug will only last six hours, so they will be fine".

"So you drugged them, even though you weren't sure whether we would let you come with us?" Sarith asked, Jemima shrugged,

"Well you have to be prepared"

Theo turned to Sarith,

"How many of those grapple things do you have?" Sarith dug through the box and pulled out two more of the braces, before tossing them to Blaze and Jemima,

"Put them on" Sarith grunted "Just press the button and jump"

"Jump?" Blaze asked, pressing the button and examining the handle and mechanics.

"Yep. Jump" Sarith said, Theo picked up his scythe that lent on a railing and strapped it to his back, Sarith stepped back from the edge of the edge of the platform, he pressed the button on the brace and the mechanical arm extended and he gripped the handle. Before anyone knew what was happening, Sarith ran forward and jumped off the edge of the platform, extending his arm upwards, for a moment, he flew through the air gracefully, almost like he was in slow-motion, then the mechanical arm caught the rail and he was carried forward on the rail at an incredible speed, with Sarith dangling from one arm, a halted railcar blocked his way, for a second Theo thought that he was going to hit it and fall or go straight through it, but in a spit-second, Sarith seemed to almost speed up, now less than 10 metres away from the vacant railcar. Suddenly, Sarith threw himself sideways, his grapple slipping away from the rail causing him to fall, he span in the air so he was falling head first towards another rail that had fallen sharply downwards unlike its companion, he plummeted downwards, the wind tearing at him until he reached out and snagged the rail with the grapple, his speed dropped instantly causing him jerk wildly as his falling body was halted by the grappled which now ran on the new rail, he looked up at the station in which the other three were watching him in disbelief, he beckoned with his free hand and then turned to look straight ahead at his steel pathway.

"So, we have to jump and do…that?" Blaze exclaimed, backing away from the edge until she backed into Theos open hand, preventing her from moving any further backwards. Jemima gulped then looked at the other two and did a little casual salute, grinning weakly,

"Well… see you in hell" she pressed the button on her brace causing the mechanical arm to extend, crouching down low, she readied her wits before bursting forth, throwing herself off the platform, both arms extended as if willing herself to hug the rail, although thankfully, the mechanical arm caught the rail and attached itself with the grinding of metal on metal and the flash of sparks, Jemima jerked in the air as she hit the rail, but she yelled back to them,

"Don't worry I'm ok" she sped towards the railcar, her eyes widened "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit" at the last moment she threw herself sideways, dislodging the arm from the rail and causing her to plummet downwards, but whist Sarith had fell gracefully like an angel, Jemima fell like a brick, her limbs flailing as she screamed. Blaze had turned pale and her eyes were wide,

"See?" Theo said, grinning and slapping her playfully on the back "Tons of fun"

Blaze turned to him "You serious?" there was a squeal of metal on metal, Theo turned to see that Jemima had landed safely on the rail, she looked shocked and was breathing heavily but was otherwise unhurt, Theo turned back to Blaze,

"Well she seems fine" Theo pressed the button on his brace and the mechanical arm extended, the handle popped up which he grasped in his hand, he faced the edge of the platform, parallel with the metal rail that ran above him, he crouched down low like a sprinter at the start of a race, he glanced at Blaze who was still standing unsure of herself nearby,

"After I've jumped, you've got to go straight after me, Ok?"

Blaze gulped then slowly nodded, Theo grinned at the madness of it all and sprung up, sprinting towards the edge, the wind rushing through his quills, the hem of his coat billowing out behind him; the wind made him deaf to everything else around him, as if he was the only conscious object in the entirety of creation. Then the floor stopped and instinctively he jumped, throwing himself out from the shell of the station, his arms raised, the mechanical arm caught the rail with a bang and a shower of sparks, with jumped off the surface of his coat. The experience was a lot more different than he had anticipated, instead of his entire body moving forward at speed; it instead felt like he was being dragged by arm forwards at a much higher speed than he was used to. The clattering of the grapple pulling him up the rail reminded him of the sound that old wooden rollercoasters make when they carry the carts up to the tip of a drop before letting them plummet into oblivion. The wooden carcass of the railcar drew nearer, its timber body coated in a fading and peeling green paint with a slogan written on it in curling red writing; he heard another bang and knew that Blaze had landed on the rail safely.

The body of the car was now approaching fast, In a split second Theo made his calculations and decisions, he threw himself sideways, dislodging the mechanised arm from the rail and sending him plummeting downwards, he yelled as he fell mainly due to the horrible sensation of his bones and internal organs seeming to shift backwards as he plunged. He could barely see, the wind seemed to tear at his eyes as if it were a wild beast, its roars deafening him, he lashed out with his arm, and almost had it wrenched out of its socket as the grapple latched onto the new rail. He laughed to himself, thankful that he had not plummeted to his death; he sped on forwards, being dragged by his aching arm and shoulder. The rail then went to a fork, one rail leading upwards and over the burning buildings to his left, whilst the other carried straight on, above the decimated street before veering off to the right, the track had been set to the right fork which carried straight on down the street however, as he approached, the track switched to the left,

"Fuck!" Theo cursed as he veered onto the opposite track to his comrades, climbing upwards over the burning carcasses of building to the left of the street, however Theo noticed that the track hadn't switched back, causing Blaze to also veer to the left as well, he looked over his shoulder at her, "It's alright, don't worry "

"I'm a little worried!" Blaze retorted, Theo turned back to the rail just in time to see that the track had been destroyed, the end completely sheared off by some form of controlled explosion, before he could stop, he was launched off the end of the snapped rail, flung forwards like insect caught in a storm, he was falling but still travelling forwards, he tried to stop himself on anything he could find, if he couldn't he would either smash through one of the windows of the opposite building or collide with the brickwork which would soon send him falling to his death over fifty feet below. He was still travelling forward at a slowly decreasing speed, he pulled Michael out of its holster and shot at the pane of glass at the approaching window, the pane smashed, creating jaws of glass which were opened wide to accept him, he raised his arm to cover his eyes as he passed through the smashed window, the remaining shards of glass tearing at his clothes as he passed, he hit the floor hard, rolling over and over until he halted by rolling into the opposite stone wall, for a second he lay there, breathing heavily through his nose, before grabbing the stone wall and using it to pull himself up, a second later there was a yell and Blaze came flying through the broken window, limbs flailing and landed in a similar fashion to what Theo had done, she lay on the floor, in a pool of broken glass, breathing like she had just ran a marathon, Theo limped over and held out his hand, she glanced up, then at his hand, before grasping it and allowing Theo to pull her to her feet. Theo looked around the room they had been left in, At once point this must have been a fairly regal room, due to the expensive-looking tapestries that hung from the walls along with portraits of nameless faces, however its furniture was covered in thick, discoloured, white, sheets, often with cobwebs spiralling from them, the chandelier was now just a shapeless mass of cobwebs from the years of neglect it had received. In the centre of the room was a small wooden plinth on which was stood a large old-fashioned projector, which unlike everything else in the room seemed fairly new and unused with wires trailing out the back and running underneath the hole-filled carpet, the wall opposite the projector was vacant of any decorations and was just a discoloured white expanse.

"Where are we?" Blaze asked, pressing the button on her brace, causing the mechanical arm to retract and the handle to fold away, Theo copied her as he looked around the room, trying to find a method in the madness of the room, still keeping Michael in one hand, Theo walked gingerly towards the door, each footstep sending up a small cloud of dust from the carpet, he turned and beckoned to Blaze with his hand,

"Come on, let's go"

Theo grasped the door handle and turned it, however the door was locked, but something else did happen, as soon as his skin touched the handle, black drapes fell down and covered all the windows causing the room to fall into a dark gloom, Theo wheeled around, Michael raised, its glowing runes illuminating his hand in the gloom. Then the projector began to warm up, the film reels beginning to spin and the trademark countdown of film was beginning to be projected onto the white wash wall,

"What the?" Blaze questioned, Theo edged forward towards the projector, which was now screening the last few numbers in the countdown,

_3…..2…..1_

A black and white film began to play, Theo recognised that the film was depicting Soleanna, but from several decades earlier, the streets were swarming with smartly dressed people and cars crawled slowly along the road. A female voice began to talk over the film through some form of hidden speaker system, making the two jump,

"_Soleanna. A city of dreams, of hope, of friendship. A city where one can find their fortune, or find their true calling. However…" _the screen cut to a shot of a cats face, the only think Theo could tell about her was that she had very dark fur and exceptionally bright eyes which seemed like they were staring into Theos very soul "_…This is not the Soleanna of today. Our Soleanna is corrupted, led by demons and the intellectually warped, despite all the 'cleansing' that has been happening in your society, the demon still lives" _Blaze turned to Theo, who's expression had hardened, his eyes narrowing, at the implicit reference to himself, meanwhile on the film, the women looked away for a second, her expression neutral, then she smiled and turned back to face the camera, the expression in the cats eyes softened and became more motherly, more caring, _"Heathen are here to help you, we're here to exterminate all the wrongs that have been placed upon you all. Do not resent the change." _ There was a soft click from above, Theo glanced upwards to see that four long cylindrical tubes that he had presumed had been part of the supports for the chandelier began to descend slowly, all of them pointed at the spot where the two were stood, Theo instinctively pulled Lucifer out of its holster with his free hand so now he had both pistols out, each aimed at separate tubes that were now beginning to spin. On the film, the women's expression had darkened and had done a complete 180 of what it was mere seconds earlier, _"And now I talk directly to you Mr Arcreus, you have poisoned this city for too long, you're actions cause more death than justice not only to Mobians, but to Humans, Demons and even Angels" _Theo glared at the film his eyes fixed with the women's on the film "_If you think that this façade of justice can go on then I tell you this" _She walked forward, until her face filled the screen "_I will burn you" _she whispered "_I will burn the heart out of you. I am Una Fitzroy and I am your end, Theo Arcreus."_ The film then ended, leaving the screen brightly lit but white and scratchy. The tubes groaned as if the effort of moving down from the ceiling was too much for them, but a spit second later, bullets tore out of them, ripping holes in the opposite walls,

"DOWN!" Theo yelled, the two dropped to their stomachs, the noise of the gunfire tearing through their eardrums, Theo rolled on to his back and fired at the four gun turrets, each bullet hitting the wires that suspended from each turret with markman-like accuracy, instantly the din ceased and the gun turrets died, smoke billowing out of the barrels. Theo rose slowly to his feet, wary of another trap, however when none occurred, he placed his pistols back in their holsters and helped Blaze to her feet,

"You alright?" Theo asked

"Yeah, I'm fine" Blaze said, pushing Theo's hand away after he helped her to her feet like his hand was contaminated with some form of foul disease. Theo turned away and walked towards the drape covered window and moved the drape slightly and looked outside at the burning streets.

"Fitzroy" Theo said to himself, remembering the film that had just played,

"What?"

"Fitzroy" Theo said, he turned from the window to look at Blaze "Una Fitzroy, the leader of Heathen, that's who was on the film" Theo gestured at the blank screen.

"So why is she after you?" Blaze asked

"I don't know" Theo said "But I think I know what she's after"

"The Skull of Diamonds?"

"You heard that?" Theo enquired, raising an eyebrow before nodding "Yes, I think she's after that. And that's bad news for us". Theo walked over the door and balanced himself, preparing into launch a sidekick at the door, hopefully busting it open, but before he could even will himself to kick out, Blaze did the job for him, launching a fearsome sidekick that tore the door of its hinges, sending splinters raining down from on-high. Theo grinned to himself,

"I was about to do that"

"Well, you took too long." Blaze said, walking past Theo and into the corridor beyond, Theo followed her into the passageway. The roof of the corridor was covered in televisions, all out of tune causing static to be resonating all across the screens, unlike the past room, the corridors luxuries and tapestries had been destroyed or torn down from the walls, many priceless artefacts now smashed into smithereens, No other light source illuminated the corridor except the static screens off the televisions that hung from wires from the ceiling.

"What the?" Blaze said, staring at their strange surroundings, a sense of dread filled the air as if something was going to come out of the darkness and attack them, Blaze clicked her fingers, causing a fireball to materialize in her hand, helping them to see their way along the corridor,

"Come on" Theo grunted pushing past Blaze and striding into the corridor, however something caught his eye he stopped, causing Blaze to almost walk into him,

"Hey, what the-" She stopped and turned to look what Theo was looking at, on the wall opposite a symbol had been sprayed on it with luminous red paint, consisting of a cross with was spiral running through it, Blaze thought this was meaningless, but Theo saw it in a completely different light, he then noticed that all around the corridor, the same symbol had been painted over and over again in different sizes and angles, Theo spun round slowly, his eyes flickering between each symbol, the pit in his stomach falling lower and lower with each symbol he saw. It was the symbol of the Leviathan Project, the project which had brought Theo back to life, by means of a mechanical implant embedded into his brain. The echidna scientist, Dimitri had placed Theo in a coma-like state whist he searched his mind of an unknown source, advancing and evolving Theos powers as he did. After Theo woke, Dimitri promised him that in five years, the two would met again and Theo would either be there to thank him or destroy him, the symbol being here now mustn't be just a coincidence.

Theo let out a shuddering breath "We need to find Sarith and Jemima" they began to move but a voice rang out from around them in a tinny interference-plagued tone,

"_Did you really think it would be that easy?"_

The televisions flickered on around them revealing the black and white face of Una Fitzroy shown thousands of times in different resolutions and saturations by each television, she was leering at them, an almost demonic rage burning in her eyes, Theo growled and his hands fell to the holsters of his pistols,

"Fitzroy"

"_Hello Theo, and Blaze, don't worry your friends are ok, I'd start to worry about yourselves right now rather than them"_

There was a creak and a bang from behind them, and light from the previous room was now shut off entirely, save for the light of the televisions and the fireball Blaze held aloft in her hand, Theo wheeled around at the sound of something moving in the shadows, then there was a hiss, a continuous hiss that sounded more metallic then natural, however all became clear when a thick cloud began to creep towards them from the farthest reaches of the corridor, illuminated by the light in the room,

"Gas" Theo muttered "Its gas. Shit, I hate gas"

"_This is only an anaesthetic, it won't harm you, I want to personally do that myself. Now let's count backwards from ten, shall we?"_ Theo began to sway on his feet but he fought for control as the anaesthetic began to switch off his conscious, Blaze held onto Theo's arm for support as she coughed as the gas filled the air,

"_10, 9, 8…"_

Theo's vision began to blur slightly, he staggered forward, batting away at the air as if the gas was a swarm of locusts, coughing to try and keep the gas from entering his body,

"_7, 6, 5, 4…"_

Blaze collapsed, completely anesthetised, Theo fell to his knees, the feeling in his muscles growing weaker and weaker with every lungful of air he took in, the corridor became just a blur of bright trails and soft sounds.

"_3, 2, 1" _

Theo teetered forward landing on his front, close to Blaze, he took in one last shuddering breath before saying one final thing whilst he slipped away from consciousness,

"Fuck…you"

Theo closed his eyes and fell unconscious…

**A/N: Hope you guys liked that chapter, remember to review with all your thoughts and if you have any stories (Namely Sonic Fanfics) you want me to read, please put them in your reviews aswell. Also sorry to everyone who tried to PM me in the past few weeks, I've had my final exams and now I'm at work. Also remember to check out ZiGeNaToR's Mobian Adventure series, they are brilliant and I guarantee that they will be some of the best Sonic Fanfics you've read in a while…. **


	9. Diamonds Aren't Forever

**A/N: I've finally done the cover for Rapture, tell me what you think in the reviews. Anyway, on with the next chapter…**

Theo's eyes slowly opened, which was almost immediately accompanied by a skull-splitting headache, he tried to reach with his hand to his head, but he found that his hands seemed to be bound, he slowly turned his head to his left and saw that thick chains had been wrapped around his wrist, restricting its movement, the chain was attached to a large bracket high above him, he turned right to see that, that wrist had been bound in a similar way, he struggled against then, but his arms only moved a few inches in either direction. His coat and vest had been removed so he was half-naked, however he was still standing on solid floor, he tried to move his legs but the anaesthetic that was still poisoning his body, restricted detailed movement, causing his legs to just slip from underneath him, his arms upward and placing his whole body weight upon them, making him grunt in discomfort. He groggily, moved his feet back into place and glanced around at his environment through his doped vision, at one point, the room would have been a grand entrance hall due to the high domed ceiling, white marble floors and the general cavernous size of the room, but now like so much else in the city, it had fallen into ruins. The marble floor was cracked and tarnished, the elaborate wallpaper was burnt and peeling off the bare plaster walls, the electric chandelier that hung about flickered dimmed as the electricity flow around the city began to die out; furniture, that at one point must have cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars now lay smashed or neglected around the room, making way for large computer banks and various laptops on desks.

He smiled when he realised there was a really easy way to get out of his predicament, he clicked the fingers on his right hand to summon his demon powers, the demonic tendrils appeared behind him, manifesting themselves from the air, his eyes became fully white and glowing with a form of internal power, he twisted his wrist, controlling the tendrils like a Puppeteer controls his creations, each of the tendrils wrapped themselves around a link of each chain, before with a flick of a hand from Theo, they tore the links apart with a loud bang, causing Theo to be set free, falling to his knees, as his weakened legs gave out, Theo clicked his fingers once again and the tendrils died away, dissipating into smoke and shadow. After breathing deeply and slowly from a few seconds, Theo pushed himself up to his feet, swaying slightly due to the effects of the anaesthetic, he unwrapped the remaining pieces of chain from his wrists, revealing that the metal had bruised and cut into his skin, he tossed one of the remaining pieces of chain aside, sending it skittering across the discoloured marble; he kept the other piece of chain with him, mainly as a weapon if he encountered anyone, since his scythe and guns had been removed from him and taken away, if not completely destroyed by Heathen. Theo sighed,

"Well, this will have to do for now",

He walked, gingerly at first, his steps unsure, due to the depressant that inhabited his system, he stumbled around trying to decide which way to go, there were six doors around him each grand and majestic, however one of them appeared to have been recently used due to the fact that the marble in front of the door was stained with mud and dirt, whist the others thresholds were clean and untouched. Theo walked over to the door and pushed against it, leaning into it with his shoulder; the door creaked and slowly opened, beyond lay a small corridor with two separate flights of marble steps which joined at a landing before fusing into one wide, complete staircase, at the end, climbing steadily upwards,. Theo walked through the door and into the corridor, the chain dangling from his hand, ready to be used as a weapon at a moments notice,

"Fitzroy said that the others had been captured" Theo thought "But they could be anywhere in this place".

A voice echoed from the area above, accompanied by the sound of footsteps,

"I thought I heard something down here",

Theo turned and ran into an empty room on his left, crouching down in the cusp of the doorway, out of sight, wringing the chain between his hands, listening intently as he heard the figures descend the marble stairs,

"You sure it was this way?" one of them asked, he heard the sound of a gun being loaded, which reinforced his thought that the guards might be armed,

"Yeah" another guard said "I heard this bang, like something had exploded"

"Oh shit, that's where the prisoner's being kept, isn't it? God, if he's escaped, Fitzroy will skin us alive, remember what she did to Barnes in Mazuri?"

"How can you forget" the other guard responded, judging by the sound of the guards' footfalls, Theo estimated they were less than ten metres away from him, "We had to bury him in the desert outside the city, or what was left of him, I mean". Theo noticed the two out of the corner of his eye, he quickly tucked the chain into the back of his trousers, and immediately he sprung up, raising his hand in the air in mock surrender, the guards, one purpely-green crocodile and a black fox upon seeing him raised their guns which Theo recognised to be FN P90 Sub-Machine guns,

"On your knees!" one of them yelled at him, Theo obliged, keeping eye contact with the crocodile, the fox reached into his back pocket and pulled out a walkie-talkie, and began to fumble with the switches in order to activate it, Theo's eyes flashed, he couldn't have a guard radio in his position, it would make his stealth escapade entirely redundant. He had to act.

In a flash, Theo pulled the chain out of the waistband of his trousers and threw it at the fox, sending it spinning into his face, the chain tore through the flesh on his face like it was paper, leaving a deep gash streaked across his face, the fox yelled in agony and dropped the radio and his gun, cradling his face with his hands, blood dripping through his fingers. The crocodile raised his gun and fired at the demon, but Theo rolled to the side, snatching up the fallen gun as he did so, he landed on his back facing up, directly at the crocodile, before the guard could turn to fire, Theo fired himself, firing two bullets into the crocodiles shoulder, causing him to jerk backward, screaming in pain. Theo turned and grabbed the fox's ankle with his free hand and with a quick twist, dislocated it. The fox fell hard onto his back, yelling at the combined pain from his ankle and face,

"Oh, Shut up" Theo said, before firing at the fox, the bullets tearing through his skull and mincing the brain, killing him instantly. The crocodile lurched forward, a flick-knife in his hand, he swiped at Theo but the hedgehog lent back, grabbing the crocodiles wrist as the blade passed over him, with one savage twist, Theo broke it, the fingers released their grasp, dropping the knife which Theo quickly caught before ramming it into the crocodile's throat. The reptile let loose gargling gasps for air as blood poured from the wound in his throat, spraying Theo's face with the crimson life substance, the guard twitched then ceased moving, Theo stepped out of the way to avoid being crushed by the falling body of the guard, the body fell next to the once of his fallen comrade, his blood mixing with his. Theo reached down and pulled the switch-blade out of the crocodile's throat and picked up the foxes walkie-talkie, before stepping over the corpses and on down the corridor as if nothing had ever happened, his footprints now painted in his opponents blood on the marble floor.

Theo stopped at the bannister of the staircase and began to tune the radio, he muttered the frequency to himself as he turned the dial on the top,

"34.67AM. That's the communications signal for this mission" Theo thought to himself, the radio squeaked and crackled until they eventually were transformed into speech,

"_I repeat, this is GUN Carrier 'Felix', approaching the monorail station on Hearth Street, please respond, over"._

Theo pressed down the side button but before he could talk, another voice came over the radio,

"_Carrier Felix, this is Agent Shadow, we're all fine but we have been drugged with a mild narcotic and we are just coming round now, however we are missing both Theo Arcreus and Blaze the Cat from our original party, who must have left sometime during the evening, over". _Theo pressed the side button and began to talk,

"Yo guys, how's tricks?"

"_Theo, where the fuck are you?" _Shadow replied angrily, Theo glanced around the room, trying to pick out anything he recognised or knew, he shrugged,

"No idea" Theo said "We were heading into the city but me and Blaze were separated from the others, then we were ambushed by Heathen, now…I don't know where we are"

"_Is Blaze safe? Is she with you?" _Shadow asked, Theo sighed,

"No. We were separated , but I will find her and the others"

"_If you don't find her, that will be one more dead soul on your conscious" _

"Tails death wasn't my fault, Shadow. In fact why don't you recover his body if you want to prove a point, show all in New Mobotropolis how I was responsible for his death, fabricate the truth like all the governments you've ever worked for."

"_Theo, wait" Shadow_ said, but Theo was through, he threw the radio on the ground before smashing it under the heel of his boot.He began to ascend the stairs, his footsteps echoing off the walls of the cavernous ceiling, pulling the flick knife out of his pocket as he did so; his ears were pricked for any sound that could suggest a trap or a survivor, he reached the first landing were the two separate flights of steps formed one complete staircase and began to climb that one. A door at the top of the staircase burst open and three extra guards rushed through, all heavily armed and coated in thick body armour and full-head helmets, Theo stopped, flick knife balanced in his right hand,

"Fuck!" he muttered, the guards opened fire, the bullets tearing through the marble staircase before him, Theo dodged out of the way, throwing himself sideways, the marble smashing into his bare back, causing him to grunt in pain; he lurched back to his feet and threw the flick knife at the nearest guard, the knife flashed as it spun through the air and embedded itself in the guards chest plate, however, instead of collapsing dead on the floor, the guard looked down and pulled the knife out of the chest plate and tossed it aside, sending it clattering over the marble flagstones, although Theo couldn't see the guards face, Theo could imagine him smiling.

Theos expression dropped, his heart pulsing, his breathing ragged, adrenaline pulsing through his veins. The guards fired once more, Theo dodged to the side once more, feeling the bullets wake in the air passing him by. He knew that he couldn't keep this up; his acrobatic feats couldn't keep him from the path of bullets, soon he _would_ be hit. In a split second, Theo made his choice, he clicked his fingers. Demonic tendrils burst from his back, tossing the guns out of the guard's hands in one swift movement, Theo began to walk forward slowly, climbing the stairs whist subconsciously controlling the tendrils, causing them to pick up the guards in a vice- like grip. Theo looked up at his captors, his glowing white eyes, studying them with mock interest, the guards tried to pull the tendrils off them but Theo simply intensified his grip, cracking the body armour. Theo sighed then clapped his hands once, in a spit second, the tendrils tightened, cracking and breaking the ribs of the guards, with slow, sickening crunches. Blood poured from the guards screaming mouths, dribbling down their chins and dripping onto the floor, forming crimson puddles on the discoloured marble, running down the stairs like inhuman waterfalls, with a wet rip, the guards were torn in two, their innards spinning across the marble. Theo grinned and caused the tendrils to toss away the severed remains of guards then clicked his fingers, disintegrating the demonic tendrils. Theo spluttered and fell to his knees, coughing up blood onto the marble stairs, its coppery taste lacing his mouth, Theo grunted then wiped his mouth on his forearm, and stood to his feet, initially clutching his stomach in pain from the violent coughing fit, the blood wasn't anything new, this always happened when he did something strenuous with his powers but he was always concerned about much damage that those powers were doing to his body. He wondered if Dimitri had known about the side-effects when he evolved Theos powers, or if he had purposefully put them there as a double edged sword, either way Theo knew that his powers were doing more damage than good to him.

He stepped through the open double doors and into a much more lavish corridor, with its furniture and tapestries intact, the floor had been elegantly polished and each surface dusted to an almost unhealthy degree, however the ostentatious flooring was soon tarnished by his bloody footprints, each step leaving a crimson simulacrum of itself behind as Theo made his way further into the corridor. His only goal appeared to be a towering oak door at the very end of the hallway, its polished surface gleaming from the row of chandeliers above, from a dull hum that littered the background, Theo assumed that these must be powered by private generators somewhere nearby, he was in half a mind to look for them and shut them down but then he heard something, a sharp snapping sound followed by a breviloquent yell, muffled by the thick door; Theos heart sank when he recognised the yell as belonging to Blaze. Horrible images flashed through his head of what they might be doing to her behind that door, without thinking, he let his instincts carry him and he threw himself against the door, which crashed open as he pounded into it, he stumbled forward into the room, expecting punches to at any moment start landing upon him or even gunfire, but nothing occurred, he glanced up, lowering the arm which he had raised to protect his face and saw that he had stumbled into a trap. Nobody was in the room, the screams of agony and the snaps of what sounded like a whip were coming from a hi-fi speaker system that sat on a desk in the centre of the room, obviously Heathen had recorded their torture and played it here to lure him in. But that wasn't his main concern, all around the room, kilos of plastic explosives had been lined across every surface, all of the wires trailing across the floor like a horde of black and red snakes, a television was mounted on the wall opposite, which flickered into life as Theo looked at it, displaying the number 5, then switching to 4, Theo suddenly realised this was a countdown, when it reached 0, the explosives would detonate and he would be no more. He turned and ran, back out of the door and into the corridor, all the while the television counted down his last seconds of life, he slipped on the blood stained marble and fell forward, landing on his side, still sliding along, Theo winced at the friction tore patches of the skin of his arm clean off, exposing the pinkish-red, living skin below; he tried to push himself back to his feet but by that time it was too late, there was a colossal explosion from the previous room, the whole room getting blown to pieces, the shockwave threw Theo forward out of the corridor and sending him cascading down the stairs, his ears ringing from the blast, debris falling along with him. He became battered and bruised as he rolled over and over down the stairs, each hit to his skull causing his vision to blur and grey out, eventually he crashed onto the landing, pieces of debris falling on him and around him, smoke filling the air, the surfaces illuminated by the glow of flames, and Theo lay, unconscious on the marble, blood seeping from a gash on the back of his head, slowly dripping down his head to pool around him on the marble, whist all the chaos billowed around him.

It was a few hours before Theo began to come round once again, his vision fading in and out of blackness, his body pinned by pieces of debris, his hearing was muted so he could barely hear the footsteps that were approaching him, eventually Theo saw three guards climbing up the steps towards the landing, he tried to move but the blow to the back of his head had rendered him completely incapacitated, unable to move, the guards reached the landing, their conversation dulled and indistinguishable to Theo's ears, he expected for them to finish the job, to end what the bomb had failed to do, but they didn't, they in fact began to pull the rubble off him, tossing the debris aside in order to free him. A guard threw a massive slab off Theos back and picked him up in a fire-man's lift, dust and ash trickling off Theos fur and skin as he was pulled from the fragments, Theo didn't try and fight back or escape, he simply fell limb and slipped back into unconsciousness.

"_Wake up Mr Arcreus"_

The voice perforated Theos mind as he began to regain consciousness, his eyes opened slowly, his eyelids heavy from a lack of sleep and a desire to return back to a state of unknowing. A sudden pain hit his cheek and his head jerked to the side, his eyes flickering open, he tried to raise his hand to the source of the pain but he found he couldn't, he tried the other hand that was unmoving too. His vision came into view and he found that he was strapped to a chair, like a chair one might find at a dentists surgery, his wrists held down by thick leather straps as were his ankles, he was in an office like room with cream colourer wallpaper with gold and red tapestries hanging off every wall, furniture was dotted around the grandeur, most noticeably a long curved desk that was opposite him, on which lay all of Theos weapons and his coat, his scythes blade glittering in the early morning sun that streamed through the French windows behind. The braces they had all been given were also strewn across the desk along with some of the groups other weapons, Theo felt slightly relieved because this at least showed that the others were here, but whether they were alive was another issue.. In front of him was Una Fitzroy, her shinning purple eyes boring into his as if trying to see into his very soul, she had a more punkish aesthetic about her than Theo had expected, her hair was short and spiked and her fur was jet black. She wore a white blouse with a black blazer over the top of it, complete with black trousers and highly polished black, high heeled boots, Theo turned his head to look at her and gave what he though was a threatening snarl but probably turned out like a badly done gurn. Una laughed,

"Nice to see your up" she said, sarcastically

"Boy, you really need some cleansing cream for your pores" Theo said, trying to show how he wasn't afraid of her, she frowned and clicked her fingers, a guard behind Theos chair stepped forward, and jabbed a taser into the side of Theos neck, the hedgehog howled as electricity ripped through him, sending his body into a jerking spasm, the taser was removed and he fell limp, Una grabbed his chin and lifted it so he was looking straight at her.

"That's no way to talk to me" She smiled then turned his head roughly so he was looking at his right, he saw that three other people were in the room with him, all in similar predicaments to his, he was slightly relieved to see that these were Jemima, Sarith and Blaze, but all of them had been badly beaten and now looked like wreaks of their former selves, their clothes either missing or just torn and bloody so they resembled nothing more than rags. None were look up, which suggested to Theo that they were almost unconscious from what they had gone through, Una continued,

"As you can see, we wouldn't want your friends to get even more hurt, do we?"

"You….abomination" Sarith grunted weakly, Una eyes narrowed, she leaned forward and whispered like an angelic lover into his ear,

"Give me a second"

She straightened up and walked over to Sariths chair, her heels cracking on the exquisite terracotta tiles. Sarith raised his head to look at her, giving Theo a glimpse of the extent of his torture. One of his eyes had a mottled, dark purple and yellow bruise surrounding it, with a long gash cutting through his cheek, blood now congealing on his skin, there were multiple burn marks around his skin, probably from the tasor, that had caused a similar burn on Theos neck mere moments ago.

"It's funny how you call me 'an abomination' when you and your brotherhood led me to my goal" Una said, smiling sweetly, hiding a subliminal malice, Sarith growled and looked away, "Face it Mr Blackburn, your religion betrayed you, your goddess had tossed you aside, the one thing that you have poured your life into as now turned against you, because I offered them something more". Sarith turned and spat in her face, his saliva hitting her on the cheek, she grimaced and wiped it off her face, wiping it on her trousers, she raised her hand and brought it down of Sarith face with a crack, causing his head to snap to the side,

"Bitch" Sarith uttered, Una smiled manically,

"Oh, you're giving more chances to hurt your friends, thanks. So for Blaze I think the tasor, on…" She thought for a second "10,000 volts". A guard stepped forward from behind blazer and jabbed a tasor into the back of her neck, she issued a high pitched scream as 10,000 of raw electrical power coursed through her, her back arched, her screaming mouth reaching for the sky, as soon as it had happened, the guard retracted the tasor and Blaze fell limb, blood trickling down her chin, Theo guessed she had bitten her tongue as her body had been locked in spasm. Theo growled,

"Stop!"

Una turned, surprised at his sudden outburst, then she chuckled,

"Why should we?"

Theo gulped,

"You can have me"

Una smiled and gestured to his unconscious friends,

"That's a bit redundant considering I have all of you right here"

"Well you can do whatever you want to me, you can torture me, enslave me, even kill me, I can tell that's what you want, right? Sending Mark in to kill me in a hope it will redeem him, and all those codes trying to lead me to some kind of master plan of yours. Well, fuck it. Do what you want to me, but let the others go" Theo said, firmly, he turned to look at Blaze, she was looking back at him her eyes struggling to stay open, but with a look of despair in her eyes, Theo tried to give her a reassuring look but he knew that their situation was more than dire. Una looked between Theo and Blaze and made the link,

"Do you want me to let them go for hero's sake, or because you just want Blaze out of harm's way, because you love her with all your heart and you haven't even told her?".

"He always has" a mysterious voice said from the shadows "Right from when they first met" a grinding, metallic sound, began in the darkness to his left and a metallic figure stepped out into the sunlight, at first glance it appeared to be an echidna made entirely out of metal, but as he stepped closer Theo could see the pipes leading its metal body from small storage tanks all around its body, occasional gaps in the metal showed withered, ancient skin, the fat hanging from the bones, its eyes were little more, red robotic eyes that surveyed the room, its brain, or what was left of it, calculating every possibility, Each metallic grind corresponded with one of the mechanism footsteps. Theo knew instantly who this was; he had had an incline he might be here when he was the Leviathan Symbol earlier. Dimitri.

"Dimitri" Theo growled,

"Hello Mr Arcreus, I told you that you would see me again in five years" Theo struggled against his bindings, the leather straps creaking as he pulled against them.

"When I get out of here, you'll be so sorry you ever dared to see me again" Dimitri laughed, Una stayed quiet, Theo wondered if Una felt out shadowed by the echidna scientist, after all he probably masterminded the set-ups that led him here. Then finally, Una spoke,

"Just like your whore of a mother, always wanting more of the action"

"Don't you dare talk about my mum like that!" Theo yelled at her

"Why? You never knew your mother. But Sarith and his brotherhood did" Una replied smiling, Theo turned to Sarith, his eyes wide.

"How-

"You see, they worshiped her. She was one of Aurora's maidens."

Sarith nodded,

"Yeah…..Eve"

Dimitri stepped in,

"Eve is supposedly the Angel of Life, watching over all living things and their trails and jubilations, well I say Angel, she was actually an Arch-Angel. She clearly thought all living things were equal otherwise you, the spawn of Eve and Mephiles, wouldn't exist."

He moved over to the desk and reached under it pulling up a large metal crate, the kind goods of extreme value were carried in, he opened it up, and a bright light it up the cold metal of his face, sparkling off the chrome surface, Una tried to move closer to see the object but the scientist pushed her away, an almost mad glint in his eye,

"You've been living a dream Mr Arcreus, and a lie all rolled into one, in fact the name Theodore Arcreus is completely false" Dimitri pulled the contents of the box for all to see, it was a skull, but made entirely of diamond, but it seemed to shine as if someone was shining a light through it constantly, refracting light all across the room. Theo knew what this was too. The Skull of Diamonds.

"Let's see whether this can show us what you really are" Dimitri said, moving forward slowly, the skull clasped in his hand, Una stepped in and grabbed his wrist,

"Are you crazy? The boss wants him alive"

"Well let's see whether it will kill him" Dimitri said coolly, whist still looking at Una, the claw on his free arm extended, clamping around the throat of a guard, who struggled desperately to break free, Dimitri dragged him inexorably towards him, a derailed look in his cold robotic eyes, the guard was being held in the air by Dimitri, scrabbling at the metal claw around his throat, without hesitation, Dimitri whipped around and pressed the skull against the guards forehead; the guard let out a ear piercing scream, as the skull seemed to burn away at him, blackened pieces of flesh dropping away from him as the supernatural entity ate away at him. The guards form seemed to osculate between a normal mobian form and a strange, deformed shape, a cruel parody of its former self with massive contusions littering its body, Theo then suddenly knew that he and all of the other guards in the room, if not the whole city were demons, probably brought with Dimitri and Una when they entered the city.

As if the demon was dust on the wind, it slowly disintegrated, each particle of its being floating away on a none existent wind and fading out of existence until nothing remained. Dimitri slacked his claw then let it fall to his side,

"Well what do you know, it kills demons. Let's see how it does on angel and demon hybrids" Una grabbed him yet again, her hand tight around the scientist's wrist,

"The boss wants him _alive_"

Dimitri pulled his arm away,

"Well the boss will kill him anyway so let's just get it over with" he began to move forward, the skull still incandescent in his hand. Theo began to panic, he struggled against the straps which restrained him but they didn't slacken or become loose. Dimitri smiled at Theo's failure,

"Sorry Mr Arcreus, but this is one death you won't come back from" he slowly and unstoppably, he lowered the glowing skull onto the back of Theos right hand. The pain wasn't like anything he had ever experienced, it felt like every nerve in his arm was on fire, each muscle collapsing then growing, every bone snapping then reforming. Theo let out scream after desperate scream, as the flesh on the arm began to burn away, the ashes falling on the marble floor, coating it a lighter shade of grey, He tried to bite his lip to supress the shrieks of agony but only succeeded in sinking his teeth into the soft tissue, letting the coppery taste of his own blood fill his mouth. Blaze and Sarith watched on as his arm continued to dissipate and deform, Jemima hadn't responded the entire time, so Theo assumed that she was unconscious. Una watched on, not sure whether to encourage Dimitri or drag him away, her internal conflict registering as a look of doubt on her face. Theo felt like he was on the verge of passing out, giving into the pain and letting it consume him, but something deep inside him suddenly ignited, flaring upwards as the degradation seeped over his shoulder on dribbled onto his chest and shoulder blade. Then Dimitri suddenly backed away, dropping the skull and letting it roll away across the floor, transfixed by what was happening,

"No…..No that's impossible!" He yelled, now for all his decades if not centuries of experience, he was powerless to stop the change that was happening to Theo. Theo noticed that the pain in his arm was beginning to subside, he looked down and saw the reason for Dimitris shock, the uppermost skin and fat layer had been burnt clean away, leaving the bare muscles and sinew exposed, along with tee occasional snippets of bone visible through the gaps between the individual bundle of tendons, the further down the arm he looked, the worse the damage was, but it wasn't that that had peaked his interest. Crystals were beginning to form over the damaged limb as individual pockets of flesh became crystallised into a dark blue, before the crystals causatum spread like a malignant virus across his arm, the strange crystal, replacing his skin as all the organs and bone in the limb became victims of its influence. He felt stronger as if the crystallisation managed to rekindle life in him, he tugged as the strap on his crystal arm, it snapped as it was made of paper, freeing his new demonic arm, allowing him to tug at the other strap, snapping that in a similar fashion. The crystal grew into spikes running down the side of his forearm and ceasing at the elbow, each around 8cm long and a bright glowing blue. He kicked outwards and tore the straps that held his ankles allowing him to stand, rage burning in his eyes, Dimitri backed away into the desk as Theos omnipotence expressed itself further as two large wings began to form out of his back, composed of the dust and air around him, in a similar fashion to how he summoned his demonic tendrils but this was more than that, almost as if Dimitri had accidentally upgraded his powers further. One was bright and gleaming white, its light, inflaming the room with its divine benevolence; pure white feathers fell from it as he walked forward, savouring Dimitri's fear. The other was black and leathery, clouded in smoke and whist the angel wing radiated light, this demon one seemed to suck it in, swallowing it up in order to sustain itself, its form was almost like a skeleton of a normal wing, with no long plains like wings that other creatures process, just the bare bones of one.

Theo looked down upon Dimitri with a mixture of calm and hate,

"Now whose turn is it to be the subject?" Theo said, his voice sounded more calm and silkier than usual but it was laced with a dark undertone which gave the impression that his voice was trying to sooth and intimidate. A blade emerged from Dimitri's wrist, from his downed state he slashed upwards at Theo, but he caught it in his now complete crystal hand, "Pathetic" he mumbled before pulling on it wrenching it out of his socket, tossing aside the blade. He reached down and picked up Dimitri by the throat, slamming him up against the wall, the remaining demon guards moved to stop Theo but he simply clicked his fingers and there was blinding flash from inside each of them, the glow filtering out through their nose and mouth, then with a final burst of light they collapsed to the ground. Dead.

"I'll give you a chance to save your life" Theo said , his crystal fingers tightening around his throat bending and distorting the metal underneath "Who are you working for?"

"Like I'd tell you that" Dimitri said, a smile emerging on his face, Theo growled and slammed his head against the wall emitting a dull clanging sound.

"Who are they?" Theo yelled at him, Dimitri chuckled,

"They are all-powerful and so, so much stronger than you" Theo yelled in frustration and threw him onto the desk, scattering, his clothes and all the weapons, the hybrid raced over before he could stand and pinned him down by the throat with his normal hand,

"Give me a name!" Theo demanded, Dimitri slowly shook his head, Theo yelled and punched downwards onto the echidnas sternum, ripping it apart as if it was made of tissue paper, Dimitri yelled in pain, blood flowing out of his mouth, Theo leaned in and whispered to him,

"I told you I would kill you in 5 years"

Dimitri's eyes widened, as they gazed upon the last image he would ever see, Theo baring down upon him, wings spread out like the angel that he was. In one split second, Theo grabbed Dimitri by the neck and crushed it like paper, the metal groaning and snapping, each vertebrate crunching with the extreme force Theo exerted. With one last look into his cold, dead eyes, Theo tossed the body aside, the metal corpse skittering across the marble like a stone on water. His attention turned to his three friends still tied up, he approached and quickly cut their bonds with a slash of his crystal hand, Sarith stumbled upright, holding his ribs in pain, judging by his stance and expression, he guessed that they were cracked or broken, he was looking at Theo with a mixture of admiration and horror,

"Holy mother of Aurora"

"No, just an angel/demon hybrid unfortunately" Theo said, plucking one of the pure white feathers out of the air and running it between his fingers. Blaze slowly stood up, she tried to get her bearings as she swayed on the spot, however before she felt, Theo ran forward and caught her, "Whoa, easy there", she raised her head from his chest to look at him, her eyes gazing into his, she smiled then closed her eyes and fell unconscious. Theo checked her pulse and breathing rate to make sure they were normal then straightened up,

"We'll need to get our stuff before we go" Sarith said, moving towards the desk and picking up his ¾ coat and his titanic cross, carefully stepping over Dimitri's body as he did do, he tossed Theo his stuff which he placed by his feet, out of the corner of his eye, Sarith noticed Una, trying to scurry away but Sarith grabbed her by the leg and dragged her backwards,

"Hold on a second, little lady, you're not going anywhere", Sarith tossed her in front of Theo, who gazed down on her like she was the spawn of Hell itself,

"What do we do with her?" he asked, wiping blood absentmindedly of the knuckles of his crystal hand,

"I reckon we kill her, right here right now" Theo shook his head,

"No, she needs a fair trial"

"What and Dimitri didn't?" Sarith retorted, pointing at the scientist's vacant body to emphasis. Theo looked up at Sarith,

"Dimitri was my responsibility, he past the point of 'normal justice'"

"Don't I at least get a say in this" Una said, sarcastically

"No" Theo said, walking around her and picking up the discarded Skull of Diamonds with his crystal hand, he was surprised to find that nothing occurred, no burning flesh, no pain, nothing, "We'll take you to New Mobotropolis where you will face a trial".

"And how are we going to get there, genius?" Sarith asked, Theo walked back to his bundle of clothes and weapons and picked them up, placing them under his normal arm before picking up Blaze and placing her under the other as if she weighed nothing, still with the Skull of Diamonds in his crystallised hand,

"Grab Jemima and Una" Theo said, Sarith snorted,

"Why? Why should I do anything you say after you reveal yourself not only to be a demon, but an angel as well?" He yelled, gesturing at Theos spiritual wings to prove his point,

"Because if you don't I'm leaving you behind" Theo said coldly, Sarith hesitated then obeyed. Theo checked around him for anything he had left behind, then closed his eyes and focused, picturing the Acorn Park in the centre of the city where they could go, a bright light enveloped them consuming them all in its radiance, then the light fell away, leaving only an empty room and a plethora of bodies behind.

Theo let out a gasp as he woke up, face down in grass, the wind blowing through the fur on his back, for a moment he savoured his trice, breathing in the earthy smell of the grass, feeling the sun blanket him in its warmth and the wind dance and sing across his body. He was vaguely aware of the unearthly wings behind him disintegrating into the air but he didn't pay much attention, eventually and grudgingly, he slowly picked himself up and admired his surroundings. They had landed exactly where he had imagined, in Acorn Park, on the shore of the Lake of Rings, where one the opposite bank stood the Great Clock Tower, which Theo had fallen out of merely a day earlier, the face still smashed from where he piled into it, he surprised to see that the park was actually populated at the time of day, but then again the gorgeous weather possibly made his presumption a bit idiotic. Picnickers were strewn across the fields, their children playing in the shallows of the lake, laughing and splashing each other, however when attention was drawn to Theo and the others, the laughter stopped and all turned to look at him, and Theo couldn't blame them, they had all been beaten or tortured, every single one of them had been dragged through hell and back, all except for Una who didn't have an injury on her.

Theo raised a hand in greeting to the assembled masses

"Oh don't mind us. Just too much booze" he made the drinking motion with his hand, he heard a groan from behind him and he turned to see Sarith getting to his feet, rubbing his head and groaning,

"Never…do that….again"

"I feel fine" Theo said

"Well my head feels like it's been beaten with a steak tenderiser". He heard the rumble of hurried footsteps approaching, they turned to see a platoon of guards from Castle Acorn coming towards them, Sarith smiled at them, trying to act relaxed, whist Theo pulled his vest and coat back on, and smuggled the Skull of Diamonds into a pocket of his coat, he then placed his guns in their holsters and strapped the scythe to his back, some of the onlookers gasped as they saw the blade, glinting in the sunlight. The guards approached , all towering over them by a good few inches, Theo smiled and picked up Una's unconscious body before dumping it in the arms of the nearest guard,

"Detention centre for that one, I think quite a few people want a word with her" Theo turned and picked up Blaze and carried her in his arms past the guards and onto the main pathway, Sarith picked up Jemima and followed, the two walking side by side. Theo thought he heard a guard shouting after him but he didn't turn to respond,

"So where are we going?" Sarith asked, adjusting his hold on Jemima,

"Hospital" Theo said "It's not far from here, plus, I think we all need something that needs healing right?"

"True that" Sarith agreed, then shuddered "I hate hospitals"

"Relax" Theo said "Think of it as a holiday camp but with loads of ill people".

"You know that really doesn't help".

The two kept on talking as they made their way to the hospital, mostly to keep themselves occupied, but in the back of Theo's mind, something was eating away at him. The mastermind, the one who Dimitri and Heathen had worked for, they wanted him dead….but why?

**A/N: Behold my longest chapter yet. Remember to read and review with your thoughts on the chapter and the cover of the story, also I will check out and review any Sonic related story you want me to. **


	10. Armistice

**A/N: Sorry for the delay in updates, I have two reasons for this, Firstly, I'm in the process of writing a novel so im dividing my time between the two and secondly, I've bought a load of new DVDs like The Walking Dead (S1), Supernatural (S6) and Devil May Cry: The Complete Animated Series, so sorry.**

Theo jerked awake from an unjust nightmare, and age old image of his cruel childhood, reawaken from the depths of his mind to haunt him once again. For a while he was disorientated, the harsh industrial lighting of the room blurring his vision, throwing him off balance. He tried to sit up but he was greeted by sharp stabs of pain from all over his body, as if each pain receptor was firing off signals without any breaks respites. He moved his head up slightly and found that pain didn't flow as rapidly when he did this, he noticed that with each action he performed, there was a metallic clicking sound as if two needles were hitting each other on the zeniths of their bodies. He lifted his head up a bit more until he could see the cause of his restraint. Thick needles had been inserted into almost every square centimetre on the back of his body, each needle passing through the wide metal mesh that made up his bed. With each second that was passing he could feel something being extracted from him whether it was blood, muscle tissue or even bone marrow, it was making him feel weaker with every second that passed.

He tried to move his left, crystallised arm but only felt a strange, grinding sensation on the inside of the palm, he glanced down at it and saw a nightmarish devise clamping it down, it resembled and cylindrical cage, constructed from thick steel bars with what looked like dried blood clinging to their dull grey skin. Bolts had been drilled through his crystal arm, either to prevent him breaking out of it or to allow access to the inner flesh, he didn't know, but the mere sight of it made his heart rate speed up even more. He glanced around the dimly lit room in which he was being kept, taking in the discoloured tiles, the flickering strip lighting, the one-way glass pane that covered almost a whole wall, Theo guessed that behind it, doctors and scientists were watching him, calculating him, working out what he will do next, such was the nature of all scientific men, study something until you know everything about it, down to its disposition and method of thought. Theo knew that his arm was the reason why he was here, locked in their personal lobotomy chamber, either they though that the arm was caused by a form of infectious disease and they were afraid that it could spread to the rest of the world, or that behind all of their protection and reassurance, the people studying him also feared him; this seemed the most feasible, after all when he had returned to New Mobotropolis, the last remnants of the energy that the Skull of Diamonds had given him was just burning off, but the two supernatural wings he had gained were still there, slowly disintegrating on the breeze as entropic order of the world tore them away, even when he had reached the hospital, the wings were still their even though their outer reaches were more-or-less gone.

He had been rushed into a side room, presumably so that the hospital staff could decide what to do; after about 20 minutes, a nurse had come in with a small trolley loaded with dressings, ligatures, antiseptics and bandages, she didn't speak to him at first, Theo could tell she was afraid, the look on her face when she picked up and studied Theo's crystallised arm said it all. She then told him to remove his coat and vest so she could get a full idea on the extent of the crystals so-called 'damage', he had obliged, if he hadn't received the arm itself, Theo might have believed that this examination was going to turn out like so many of those 'adult' films he had stolen or 'borrowed' from Shadow when he was younger, but he knew that wasn't ever going to happen, fear and confusion blocked all forms of lust. The crystal had consumed his shoulder and had bled onto his chest and shoulder blade, the nurse made a note of this; after what seemed like an age of joint exercises and movements, she told him to stop and she began to treat his other wounds, cleaning the multiple gashes with antiseptic before stitching them up and placing various creams on the burns on his neck and arms. Just then a doctor had entered the room somewhat hesitantly, a scruffy white coat pulled over his yellow feathers, a pair of round glasses balanced precariously on his beak, even though he had aged quite a bit, Theo still recognised him, he had saved his live all to many times. Dr Quack.

Theo had greeted him but oddly, Quack didn't respond, he simply strode across the room and pulled a syringe out of his coat pocket and gave it to the nurse before whispering something in her ear. She nodded grimly, and approached Theo a second later, the syringe brandished in her hand, Quack observed him from a distance, his eyebrows knitted together in an expression of concern, Theo was about to ask Quack what was going on before the syringe was jabbed into his arm and the plunger was pressed downwards, the narcotic substance hit Theo's bloodstream within a few seconds, causing him to become fatigued, he slumped sideways, his vision becoming more disorientated with each passing second, with one final, spiteful look at Quack, Theo passed into unknowingness.

And now here he was, rigged up to machinery and devices like some form of biological experiment, his body becoming unsaturated as the needles took whatever they wanted from him, One minute he had been working for the government, the next he was strung up, exhibited as the freak of nature that he was and was drained of anything precious that existed in his body. He tried to move the crystal arm within its prison but the bolts created an unpleasant grating sensation which in turn sparked a further dose of pain. Theo grunted then ceased his efforts; he turned and glowered at the one-way mirror, knowing that it was almost certain that someone was behind it, watching him.

"Let me out of here" he said, in an almost deathly whisper, as if he was talking face-to-face with the person behind the glass, he turned back to the ceiling, his anger welling up in him until he let it out,

"GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

He thrashed about with no consideration for his general wellbeing, causing the needles to either sink further into him or to be jerked out, allowing warm blood to dribble from the puncture hole and onto the metal mesh; each fathom of pain caused him to yell and scream with a animalistic ferocity. Clearly he was attracting attention, because a few moments later, there was a loud static buzz as an intercom was switched on then a voice spoke.

"Cautery process and needle removal in 5 seconds"

Theo could instantly tell that this was no living voice, it was an automated message, speech sound waves replicated by a machine but instead of making it sound organic, made it sound more artificial and false than ever; but it was what the voice had said that worried him. Cautery meant the sealing of a wound and needle removal was pretty obvious, but what did it all-

His train of thought was suddenly cut off as the needles in his body burnt white hot, making him shriek in pain, tears forming in his eyes; the entirety of his body felt like it was fire, his body instinctively tried to move away from the source of the heat, but of course the machine had him in his grip, like a fly caught in a trap. Then, with a hydraulic hiss, the needles pulled out of him, their white hot nibs sealing the wound by melting the flesh; tears ran down his face in their entirety, he didn't scream though, his voice felt to hoarse for that, he simply moaned pain fully as the needles extracted themselves from his flesh. Once he felt the last metal tube leave his body, he hurriedly pushed himself off the metal bed and scurried over to the other side of the room, where he collapsed in a corner, his back on the wall. His breathing was quick and shallow, sweat running down his face to mix in with the tears that tumbled down his cheeks; he might have been freed of the needles but the cage-like device was still attached to his crystal arm, rendering it useless. With his free hand he tried to pull the device off, but the bondings were strong and he doubted he could get them off without some brute force. He tried smashing it into the wall in an effort to snap some of bars but only succeeded in igniting a fresh wave of pain; but this pain seemed to force him to continue; he hit the cage against the tiled wall over and over again, each hit cracking the tiles until some of the discoloured pottery began to come off in pieces.

After a couple of seconds of this, Theo yelled in frustration and stopped his manic actions, his breathing rough and jagged through his clenched teeth; he looked back down at the restraint on his arm to look for any sign that it was beginning to become loose but none revealed themselves. Only a clear liquid bubbled up from the thin gap between the bolts that drilled into his arm and the crystallised flesh, Theo presumed that this is his newly transformed blood.

His head lolled to the right as his breathing returned to its normal speed, his eyes lingering on the thick metallic sheet that made up the door of his cell, he reached out slowly with his right hand and allowed his fingers to brush the cool metallic surface; soon as his respiration came back to normal he rapped his knuckled against the door and listened. No echo. But no definite reverb either. Intrigued, he pulled himself up slowly, the joints in his legs creaking as he did so, there was a viewing hatch situated in the upper centre of the door, but it was out of his grip due to caging that was welded in front of his side of the viewing hatch. He tried to jab his fingers through and found that he could reach it but he could only drag his fingernails across the metal to move it. With slow painful movements he clenched his fingers and dragged his nails across the metal, moving it across centimetre by centimetre, each movement splintering and cracking the fingernails themselves, causing blood to leak through the cracks and crevices in the surface until the tips of his fingers looped around the end of the sliding hatch. With a sigh of relief, Theo pulled sideways and the hatch slid open allowing him to see into the environment beyond.

Behind the door lay something which he did not expect, a dark woodland, the trees stripped bare, little more than poles sticking out of the earth, the forest of mutilated trees seemed to stretch on forever, with no crest or dip in between, only a mist which drifted idly between the wooden sentinels. The sky was lit by the occasional flash of blood red lightning that arced across the black abyss in strange and unseen ways;

"Hello?" Theo yelled into the outside world, retracting his hand from the hatch in order for him to see more of his environment "Anybody out there?" Almost instantly, the hatch clanged shut, cutting off his view of the outside world, Theo backed away suddenly startled by the sudden movement that was not his own; as if cued on by this, the battered TV screen hanging from a bracket high up in the tiled wall flickered into life, displaying static.

"What the hell is this?" Theo thought "Demons?"

Theo walked over to the one way mirror and lent against it, glowering at his own reflection, imagining whoever or whatever it was staring back at him on the other side,

"You've got me" Theo said, quietly at first but then he repeated it louder as he backed away from the glass, raising his arms briefly to emphasis his point, "You've got me. Right where you want me, right?" He began to spin slowly on the spot, his head raised, chuckling to himself, "I mean you could just kill me if you wanted". He then stopped and lowered his head, suddenly in deep thought,

"But you're not. Sure, you put all that crap in me but you didn't kill me…which begs the question", he slinked his way towards the glass one more, his pressed his free hand against it, lowering his face to the glass until he was only a couple of centimetres away from its cold surface, he stared into his own eyes, long and hard, as if they were the eyes of his captor,

"Why didn't you?"

Then, his ears picked up something over the static, at first it sounded like a whisper, but then its volume until it became a call, a call of his name. He whipped round and faced the television, over the grey and black grains of the static, he could see another picture but it flickered and disappeared in milliseconds before reappearing a few seconds later; but soon those intervals decreased and soon the face appeared in a fuzzy black and white picture. Theo instantly recognised the face. Fever.

"Theo?! Theo are you there?" Fever yelled, his picture distorting along with the volume of his voice,

"Yeah, I'm here" Theo replied "How are you doing that?"

"Never mind that" Fever said, his tone much more serious that Theo had ever heard it "You should be very worried about yourself". Theo frowned,

"Why? Where am I?"

"You're in Purgatory" Fever said "Me and my forefather detected your soul down there after you disappeared".

"Purgatory?" Theo said "How...I mean…How am I dead?"

"The same reason why I can only communicate with you like this"

"Demons?"

"Yes. They're trying to block the signal, that's why you can't see me so clearly. I've been wrong, I've been stupid, I've been blind. They've been controlling everything from the side-lines".

"What do you mean?" Theo asked, moving forward slightly,

"Those sigals. The ones that were appearing everywhere in New Mobotropolis. Well they had _nothing_ to do with a code. They were summoning symbols"

"Oh no,no,no,no,no. Oh god no" Theo muttered cradling his head in his free hand,

"Buts not the worst of it" Fever continued, his picture flickering once more "They've been active, since they appeared and that means-"

"That every single person that got near them became possessed."

"Yes"

Theo began to pace back and forth, his head still in his hand,

"It's very clever" Fever continued "Create symbols, make you think they are something else and send you on a wild goose chase, whist they build a silent army. Now they have nearly all of GUN in their grasp."

"But that's not the only bad news isn't it" Theo asked, trying not to let the anger show in his voice

"No. The demons have been busy, you know the guy who attacked you in the clock tower, Mark I think it was, well he's been released from prison early, which sparked uproar as you can imagine. But even more strangely, he's set himself up as a buissnessman in the east end of New Mobotropilis, he owns everything; clubs, brothels, opium dens; there's nothing he doesn't have his hands on."

"But what's that got to do with anything?" Theo asked

"He's funding a campaign entitled Rapture which is an armistice of all firearms and missiles in the country, in memory of Tails. Mark and Sonic have put a lot of work into it. Public rallies, charity donations, petitions; that sort of thing. He and Sonic blame you for Tails death, they said that "your eagerness for battle, directly drove him into the firing line" and that Tails would have wanted the armistice to finally bring peace to the country. Even Heathen have joined the cause saying thst Tails death was unneeded and tragic".

"It'll make chaos instead" Theo muttered, he thought the plan through in his head, Marks ownership of the east end made him a lot of income thus funding the armistice, and since the possessed walked all over the city, the propaganda they spread would soon be believed by the city, if not the country; even Theos previous acts that he did when he took over Soleanna may have only added to the believability of the propaganda. He shook his head. They had planned this from the beginning, once the armistice was in place, the army would be unleashed and the country would be powerless. But then something occurred to him,

"What are Shadow and the others saying about this?"

Fever frowned,

"Well as far as I know all of them support the cause, but in a rather odd twist of fate, Blaze and Shadow disappeared about a week after you did"

"They aren't banging in a shed somewhere are they?" Theo asked, Fever chuckled

"No, I think they are the only two left who believe you and not in Rapture. But all of this is getting us nowhere. Like I said earlier you're in Purgatory, which is probably the worst place you can be right now. Now if I were the demons, I would have put you in a confined area where you can't do anything, and I presume that's what they've done".

Theo nodded,

"Just remember Theo, that place was designed to torture you, to make you unsure about what is real and what isn't. You're on your own, Neither me or my fellow Olympians can help you, the demons have us in lockdown so we can't do a thing. Just remember, Azrael, this isn't real."

"How do you-" Theo asked but before he could finish, the screen died and faded into blackness once more, Theo simply stood there, stunned,

"How does he know my real name?" he thought "I've hid it from everyone. Heck, even my name is legally Theo, so how does he know?".

He looked around his confined cell once more, trying to find a way out,

"First things first. I need to get out of here"

His eyes narrowed and he began to search…

**A/N: Right that's another chapter done ,apologises once again for the long wait. Remember to review and favourite and do all that sweet stuff.**


	11. Lying Low

**A/N: A new OC will be in this chapter. Remember if you want a character in this story (they will have a small part mind you), just send their profile:**

**Name**

**Age**

**Fur Colour**

**Eye Colour**

**Weapons/Powers**

**Backstory (Must tie in with the Arcreus Series)**

**Alignment (Good or Evil? + Views on Theo)**

A harsh autumn wind whipped across the near-deserted street, picking up small pieces of litter and sending them spinning across the cobbles. The loose edges from the Rapture posters flapped in the breeze, slogans proclaiming that 'A New World is Here!' were faded from the sun that cast no warmth in that bitter evening. Shadow was trying to keep under-the-radar so to speak, he hadn't left the safehouse in days and he and Blaze had been changing their phones every week or so along with credit cards, each linked to a false or stolen account. The wind tossed his quills mercilessly as he walked head down, avoiding showing his face to anyone, from his right hand hung two plastic bags each filled with general groceries that he had been out to fetch. In his head, he was still trying to come to terms with what had happened over the past few weeks, an armistice know as Rapture had begun, funded by multiple businessmen and Heathen, and which now had support from the Freedom Fighters and most of GUN, which included his friends like Cynder, Rouge and Carmine; all of whom had turned tail and joined with this crusade. It was strange, not only had they made that rather rash decision but their personalities seemed to have changed as well, all had become secluded, not talking, not even when they were working together; then there was their eyes, cold, lifeless, blank; almost as if someone had torn the soul from them.

Bad had gone to worse. They had become aggressive towards him and any others that didn't act like them, which were few and far between; until a couple of days earlier, he had been attacked by them and the others like them, the fight had been hard, he had hurt friends, comrades people he liked; but in the end it was this weakness that held him back. They had destroyed his quarters and his possessions, burning them until they were nothing but ash, Blaze had fought valiantly by his side but in the end, they were too many, they fled during the chaos of the inferno. Eventually, after hours of lumbering through the streets, bloodied and beaten, they had found a safe house, a block of backstreet, decommissioned apartments, coated in graffiti and in a poor state of neglect; a place where they wouldn't be noticed or found. Over the past few days they had made their squalor their new home; purchasing the various goods with fake credit cards that he had made for himself years earlier when he had lived off-the-grid; they even found a ripped and frayed sofa upon the vast trash-heap that made up the area behind the apartments. With a glance at the occupants of the street, Shadow slipped away into a backstreet, his ebony fur concealing him in the darkness; he had to get back quickly, every second longer he spent out in the open, the more he put himself in danger. He and Blaze were now wanted fugitives, every police force in the country were looking for them, and Station Square, despite its bold metropolitan heart was succumbing to the new threat.

Shadow turned sharply left, wandering down a severely overgrown path, which led away from the austerity of the concrete jungle, litter bins overflowed either side of him, polluting the air with the unpleasant aroma of rotting vegetation and waste. Shadows nose wrinkled at the smell, causing him to walk more briskly in order to vacate the area as soon as possible, he stepped onto an old wooden bridge that crossed a lifeless, grey river, it surface sparkling in the evening sun. His feet slipped a little on the oncoming frost that was already beginning to coat every open surface, steadying himself on the railing, he continued his walk over the bridge. Occasionally, he'd here something and turn around sharply, his hand reaching for the inside pocket of his winter coat where a small revolver was hidden, but his paranoia would be quenched when he saw that it was only a stray cat or just a strong gust of wind. He left the bridge and onto a footpath, but instead of following the path right, he instead, continued walking forward and began to ascend the steep hill ahead of him, looping the shopping bag around his wrist and using both his feet and hands to ascend the hill, scrambling over the thick vegetation that offered no respite. His foot suddenly slipped on the wet mud, causing him to fall flat on his front before he slid downwards by a couple of metres, a sharp thorn rushed past him and cut his cheek, causing him to grunt in pain; he dug is knees into the mud to prevent himself from falling further, causing the skin atop them to become grazed.

"Right" Shadow thought "I'll take this slower".

He quickly checked the grocery bag with mud-encrusted hands, checking that he hadn't lost anything, when he was satisfied, he began to scramble upwards once more, taking the route a lot slower than he had mere seconds earlier. Finally, with a sigh of relief, he scrambled onto the apex of the hill, his feet sliding in the clay-like mud. Ahead of him lay their new humble abode. A small, dingy block of apartments that stood of a plinth of decaying concrete; its shell encrusted with year of graffiti and all windows boarded shut with think rotten boards. Around it was a wire mesh fence topped with rusting razor wire, whist a sign strapped to the mesh proclaimed a destruction date of three years earlier. However a corner of the metal mesh was loose near the bottom and it was just big enough of an average sized mobian to slip under, which is exactly what Shadow did. The grass became larger and thicker as he moved towards the dead building, the cracked concrete underfoot giving way to springy moss and grass. The door lay ahead, its face covered in the remains of peeling green paint and years upon years of natural neglect; Shadow placed his hand against it and gave it a slight push, the door budged by a millimetre but no more, due to the swollen wood of the door. Shadow sighed, before slamming his shoulder into the door, causing it to burst forth, revealing the cold, concrete staircase that rose up to separate landings, lit by flickering service lamps screwed into the wall at intervals.

"Honey, I'm home!" Shadow shouted upwards, as if he was going to be greeted by the warm sight of a loving wife and children, but instead he was greeted by the dull echo of his own voice. Shadow grinned slightly; he'd always wanted to say that rather clichéd line but he'd barely had a chance to. He began to ascend the flights of steps, two at a time; his eyes scanning the desolated and deserted apartments; each of which had long since been abandoned. As he got higher and higher, the sound of crackling fire became more prominent in the air, he slowed, each footstep echoing of the walls and high ceiling. He reached the next landing and opened the door straight ahead of him.

Instantly the coldness of the weather outside was overwhelmed by the warmth of the fire in the room, which was contained inside a large steel drum in the centre of the room, surrounded by wooden desks, ripped and discoloured chairs and a large sofa, on which Blaze lay, snoring softly. Around half a dozen laptops were placed on various desks and stools around the room, each displaying something different, weather forecasts on one, GUN mainframe stats on another and even Raptures website on one. One of the sofa chairs was an old flickering black-and-white television displaying a news report on the celebrations for King Elias birthday in New Mobotropolis. Images of children, their faces brightly painted smiling at the camera, waving the acorn flag delightedly in the air as if their lives depended on it. The screen cut back to the reporter and suddenly the presenters face became cold and unforgiving.

"_And finally, Violence in and around the area of New Mobotroplis has escalated over the past 24 hours with over 12 separate cases of looting and 3 separate cases of riots. Mark Klilcov, co-founder of the Rapture movement had this to say…"_. Shadow placed the groceries silently down on a nearby desk and sat down on a free chair, his eyes locked on the screen from over the rim of the barrel. The screen cut to Mark, dressed in an exquisite red and black suit, standing in front of a stand on which, hundreds of microphones each emblazoned with a different new network logo. Cameras flashed and whirred in the background as Mark lent forward and began to talk into the microphone, in the background stood Sonic dressed in a sombre black suit, his arms folded, head down as if he didn't want to be there,

"This mindless violence demonstrates something which me and my co-founder Sonic the Hedgehog have been insinuating for weeks now" He slammed his fist against the podium, "The time for Rapture is now! Bring in the armistice and we can end this insanity. Don't send in Riot Control, using violence makes violence after all" Marks face became sincere and he turned and beckoned Sonic to the podium, Sonic shook his head weakly. Mark turned back to face to podium and the camera,

"That is a thing that we all learned the hard way when Theo Arcreus's reckless and insane actions lead to the death of Miles Prower" His face suddenly became flushed with anger, "And that it is what Rapture will prevent, another meaningful loss at the hands of weaponry!".

"Oh shut up" Shadow muttered, he whipped round and snatched a pistol from the desk behind him and without thinking fired one shot through the screen, causing it to explode in a shower of sparks; silencing the slanderous lies. Blaze sat up at the noise, alert, fire roaring over her fists; her sudden anger was quenched when she saw Shadow, gun still raised at the now dead television, she sighed and flopped back onto her back, her amber eyes gazing at the peeling ceiling,

"Great, now we have nothing to watch"

Shadow walked by each desk, one-by-one, checking there displays,

"Relax, I'll go out tomorrow and get us another one"

Blaze sat up suddenly and turned to Shadow,

"No you can't, you do realise that every single time we leave here, we're in more and more danger?!" Shadow grunted and pulled a large bottle of scotch whiskey out of the shopping bag, setting it down on the desk with a loud bang. Blaze frowned when she saw it,

"I hope that's not the only thing you got?"

"Nope" Shadow said, like a magician pulling rabbits from a hat, he pulled out two big bundles wrapped in grease-proof paper and tossed one to Blaze, who tried to catch it but missed, causing it to tumble into her lap. She gingerly unwrapped it as Shadow walked over with his bundle under one arm and the whiskey bottle in the other, and sat down on a free chair near Blaze. She finished unwrapping the package and smirked when she saw its contents,

"Chips, I never thought I'd be eating these on the run".

Shadow opened his bundle of chips and was greeted by the warm delicious smell of them; for a while they did not speak, they simply ate in silence, the occasional spit or splutter from the fire interrupting them. Then Shadow broke the austere silence.

"Has anything happened since I've been out?"

Blaze nodded, unable to respond due to her full mouth, she lifted the portion of chips of her and placed them on the seat next to her; she reached over and pulled a laptop off the floor, which was displaying Raptures website; she moved it over so Shadow could see as well.

"Something really strange happened about twenty minutes ago." Shadow leaned over and looked at the website,

"Seems pretty normal to me"

"Well look at this" Blaze clicked on a tab on the website labelled 'RALLIES' and waited for the page to load. After a couple of seconds the pages loaded and they were greeted by the message 'NO PLANNED RAPTURE RALLIES AT THIS TIME'.

"So you point is" Shadow said, rotating his hand as if waiting for an answer,

"My point is that a few hours ago, Rapture had six planned rallies scheduled for the next eight months, now there's nothing". Shadow frowned,

"And the news isn't reporting anything on this. Not even a small bulletin?"

"Well, I wouldn't know, since you shot our TV. Why did you do that anyway?" Shadow sighed and took a large swig from the whiskey bottle, causing some of the amber liquid to dribble down his chin.

"I saw a Rapture conference on the news. Y'know more of Marks 'We need to save the world' bullshit"

"And you shot our TV?"

"Yeah" Shadow said, putting a few more chips in his mouth "What of it?". Blaze gave him a stern look that he would have expected to belong on the face of a teacher or a parent, Shadow performed its anonym and grinned like a child. Blaze rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the laptop,

"Anyway, if all their rallies are gone then that means-

"They've got what they wanted" Shadow finished,

"Yep" Blaze said "The question is, what do they have? But-"

"But what?"

"Rapture have also moved" Blaze said, opening up a world map which had a number of red circles on it "To apparently 'quell the violence in a non-forceful way' they've placed representatives in every major city across the continent, Empire, Pyana, Liberty. And you know what?" She opened up another tab and leant back, proud with herself,

"Those weird symbols have been appearing in the same cities Rapture have deployed themselves in".

Shadow frowned and plucked the laptop from her, the new tab showed pictures, of the new symbols all massive and all in clearly visible places, in Empire, the symbol was engraved in the chest of a great statue of a green woman, proudly holding aloft a torch, built by the humans before the age of Mobius. Shadow studied each one closely before holding his chin in thought,

"You think they're connected?"

Blaze nodded,

"Well what other explanation can there be? I mean, first Rapture moves then the symbols appear, it can't be just coincidence".

"But we don't have any proof" Shadow concluded, his ruby eyes still fixed on the screen "Buts there's one thing that still bugs me"

"What?" Blaze asked, placing another chip in her mouth

"If what Theo said was true, that _this_ is a code possibly of demon origin, then why put it in plain sight? Surly you'd want to put it in a place where it would go unnoticed, so why draw attention to it?".

"Well maybe-"

But Shadow cut her off, by placing a hand over her mouth, his body now alert, his ears twitching at the slightest noise. Over the crackling of the fire and the whirs of the computers, footsteps could be heard ascending the steps outside. Instantly, Shadow was on his feet, pistol in hand waiting to hear any other noise; he turned and nodded towards Blaze, who acknowledged this by getting to her feet and waiting on one side of the door while Shadow took the other.

The door slowly open and a figure shrouded in shadow walked in, they could only make out a few details, the black combat clothing, the white dreadlocks, the golden eyes and, most prominently, a long katana, glowing a bright blue and emitting a strange air of coldness. The figure turned and looked round the room, his elaborate sword raised, he then moved forward towards the sofas slowly, his eyes surveying the scene like an eagle's. Shadow didn't know for sure what it was that made him stop and turn, maybe it was the fact that the chips were still steaming on the sofa, or that he heard one of them breathing, but before Shadow knew it, the mysterious figure turned and saw him. Shadow fired the pistol but miraculously, the assailant seemed to do the impossible, he swung the katana downwards, as if deflecting the bullet but instead, the bullet froze in mid-air before falling to the floor where it shattered like glass. Shadow fired three more shots, all aiming for the figures head but the mysterious intruder merely spun his sword at an almost inhuman speed, freezing the bullets before they even came near him. In frustration, Shadow threw down the pistol and launched himself at him, fists raised; the assailant laughed and caught Shadows punch in his free hand. In this second long struggle, Shadow felt a sudden wave of cold run through his arm as if his blood was freezing in his veins. The assailant looked at him and smiled,

"Oops"

He gripped Shadows wrist and threw him across the room, causing him to slam into the boards that covered the windows, he dropped to the floor with a thud, his back throbbing in pain. The figure advanced but then there was a loud sizzling noise and the figure screamed in pain and fell to the ground, his back smouldering, Shadow noticed that the unseen body of a 50. Calibre sniper had completely melted into two. Behind the body stood Blaze, her hand coated and flame, Shadow put two and two together and worked out that Blaze must have burnt his back. Shadow grunted and got to his feet, walking over to the wheezing body of the intruder, he turned him over with his shoe, causing the figure to groan in pain as he put pressure on the burn; the white echidna scrabbled for the katana, but Shadow stood on his wrist, preventing him from doing so. The echidna glowered at Shadow,

"Who are you?" Shadow asked, his fists charged with chaos energy, the echidna grimaced, his golden eyes searching Shadows,

"Lieutenant Phallix Blackstar, of Station Square's GUN division. And I know who you are" he turned his head and looked at Blaze "Both of you".

"Go on, who are we?" Blaze asked "Murderers? Traitors?"

"No" Phallix uttered, he grimaced in pain once again "Listen, can I just get some ice on this? Please, it's hurting me like hell".

"Hell N-

But Shadow was interrupted by Blaze,

"Sure, hang on" she walked over to the refrigerator and opened it up,

"Wait, wait, wait, you burnt him now your offering him aid?"

"But he's in pain"

"Not for long" Shadow pointed the gun at Phallix, cocking the gun, preparing to fire. Blaze snatched the gun off him, removed the magazine then threw the empty carcase on the floor,

"Stop playing around" she snapped, Shadow growled then moved his foot of Phallixs chest, pulling the echidna to his feet as he did so.

"Thanks" Phallix said, bitterly. Blaze returned with a bottle of antiseptic and a large ice pack, Shadows expression smouldered as Phallix removed the remains of the sniper rifle from his back along with the tattered wreak of the black GUN jacket. He leant over the head of the sofa, bracing himself against the pain that was inevitably going to follow. Blaze dripped some of the antiseptic onto an old rag and placed it on the echidna's red and blistered back, Phallix groaned loudly in pain, which turned into harsh and ragged breathing through his teeth.

"Sorry about the burn" Blaze muttered, sheepishly,

"It was my fault" Phallix admitted "I shouldn't have burst in like that"

"Why are you here anyway?" Shadow asked "You doesn't seem like you're one of the others?"

"You mean a psycho?" Phallix said "No. In fact, that's the reason I'm here, I was attacked by my fellow agents, I think I fought a few off, but most of my kit was trashed. I'm homeless. I'd heard that the subjects of the 'eviction' had fled into the city, so I went to find you"

"So that's what they called it" Blaze chuckled "I would have named it 'Attempted Murder'"

"Yeah it seems that way" Phallix said "Any idea what's got into them?"

"Well we think" Shadow glanced at Blaze who nodded in approval "It might have something to do with Rapture".

"Rapture? Seriously?!" Phallix winced as Blaze removed the rag and strapped the icepack to his back,

"There. That should hold"

Phallix murmured his thanks then turned back to Shadow,

"So why do you think that anyway?"

Shadow grabbed the laptop Blaze had been using off the sofa and placed it on the head of the sofa so Phallix could see,

"Over the past couple of hours, Rapture announced that they were moving representatives to new cities across Northamer"**(A/N: Northamer is North America on Mobius in the Archie comics)** he pointed at a few places on the map "Empire, Liberty City, those sorts of places. Then by 'sheer coincidence', the seals that appeared in the Kingdom of Acorn have appeared in those cities as well. Some even appeared here too, which ain't good". Phallix grunted slightly as he bent over and picked up the glowing katana that still lay on the floor.

"But didn't Theo Arcreus say that it was a code or something?" Phallix asked,

"You know about that?" Shadow asked, Phallix chuckled as he placed the katana in the scabbard on his belt,

"Everyone in GUN knows about Theo, the soldier that turned into a maniac. Quite ironic really, he became the thing that GUN fought since the beginning. It's also a shame really; he could have really helped us out with this".

"But he gone" Shadow stated bitterly "We don't know where he is, but it's most likely that he's dead".

"Then we'll have to try and get the truth out then, show everyone what's happening" Phallix said, he looked at the two for support but his opinion was outvoted in mere looks,

"Look, Phallix-

"Please don't call me that" the echidna said, brushing some of his white and black dreadlocks out of his eyes.

"But it's your name. What do you want to be called 'Your Majesty'?" Shadow retaliated,

"No, just Skull thanks"

Shadow let out an exasperated sigh,

"Fine _Skull_, what I was going to say was that there is no way we could go up against Rapture, their the third most popular political party in Northamer and they are even starting to get connections in Downunda and Eurish **(Australia and Europe respectively)**, so why don't you just go out there to the 73 million people in this city and say 'Y'know Rapture, the peace-loving, pacifistic, flag-wavers, yeah, well they are bent on global domination. And don't know how'".

"So what do we do?" Blaze asked, Shadow sighed,

"We lie low, keep an eye on Raptures activities, and think of something" he looked at both of them "I know it's not the greatest plan, but it's the only one we've got". Skull sighed and jumped onto the sofa and snatched up some of the still-warm chips from next to him,

"Great. Let's get started"

**A/N: Apologies on the delayed updates, that's mainly because the novella that I'm writing has real started to flesh itself out, I've also had to change the story about a Nonillion times, but I've now got a time and setting that I think will work. **


	12. Purgatory

**A/N: Sorry for the massive delay, I've been caught up with Christmas and other stuff. Anyway, on with the chapter.**

Theo looked around as his environment changed and morphed itself into something new; his eyes flickered between each flickering object as the cell he was in began to amend itself into something new. He tried to speak but no sound came out of his mouth, it was like the whole fabric of reality was changing and that the whole of Purgatory was swimming before his eyes. The nightmarish cage that had surrounded his crystal arm began to dissipate into smoke before his very eyes, the holes left by its thick poles healing in an instant as if they had never been there in the first place. Sound screamed into his ears forcing him to cover them quickly to avoid his ear drums rupturing; the high-pitched wail seemed to echo off the whiteness, reverberating through the non-existence. Then the strange contortion of reality ceased, and normality began to restore itself, a road appeared out of the floating pieces of matter and Theo landed upon it, his boots slamming into stone, as building began to appear and a blue sky formed overhead, darkness, appeared out of the remaining patches of whiteness. And cocooned themselves around the hedgehog's body. He felt a familiar warmth and heaviness engulf him and seconds later, the darkness dissipated and Theo found that the surreal darkness had formed itself into his long leather coat, and his black vest.

The environment finished forming and it allowed Theo to see where he was. He stood in a large street that seemed to branch out into side roads which criss-crossed out of view, the sky overhead was a fantastic blue but the sunlight that flooded downwards felt artificial and harsh as if he was stood inside a movie set. Theo began to walk down the road, aimlessly, looking down each side street for any sign of where he was; against his better judgement, he called out,

"Hello? Anybody here?"

All he gained in response was the wind that tossed up the tail of his coat, causing it to flow on the air like silk on marble. He tried to looked through the windows of his strange prison but each was tinted, blacked-out, preventing him from looking in.

"What the hell?" Theo uttered, and as if on cue, a massive wall burst up from the road ahead, tearing up cobblestones and tossing them into the air, Theo stopped and stared, as the wall rose ahead, completely cutting off his path ahead and continuing to rise higher, above the summits of the buildings on either side. Then it stopped.

Theo hesitated, frowning

"O…..kay"

He began to move towards the sudden intruder, his steps light and cautious, every fibre of his being was prepared to drop and run if any trouble presented itself. The wall itself was bare. Now windows, no door, nothing, except for an elaborately carved mural that spanned its upper width, for it to burst out of the ground without warning told Theo one thing and one thing only. He was still trapped in Purgatory. His bare hand reached out and brushed the smooth brickwork , instantly, a strange black tar began to seep out of some of the cracks in the upper half of the wall. Theo jumped back, wary of this new chemical, but this was unlike anything he had ever seen, it twisted and turned with a mind of its own, until it formed words on the grey bricks.

NO ESCAPE

He felt the entire road move as the buildings closed in with unnatural speed and closed together on one side. Now he was trapped.

"Oh great" Theo muttered, the air seemed to groan and the ground began to shake, Theo looked around the street as the strange new earthquake began to take hold upon the street.

"Oh shit, that doesn't sound good", Theo took one step forward, then the surrealism of the world began to take effect. The ground fell sharply downwards, creating a make-shift pit, in which the demon was now trapped, surrounded on all sides by great brown cliffs, on top of which stood the buildings. Shapes began to emerge from the rock, hands stretching through it as if it were some form of liquid or gel; hundreds of unearthly fingers stretching out of the rock towards Theo. Then came the screams, silent as if carried on the wind, but at the same time deafening, booming out of every corner of the distorted universe. Theo looked around desperately for a weapon, anything he could use to help him fight the approaching onslaught, there was nothing inside the pit itself, but above him, embedded in the tiles of one the roofs of the buildings was his scythe, its blade protruding slightly from the slate.

The creatures emerged from the cliff faces, all faceless, and drenched in a strange black goo, that seeped through the cracks in their skin of rock. Theo clenched his fist and glanced around the pit, forty maybe fifty of the creatures had emerged and more were coming by the second, soon he would be drowning in Purgatory's residents. The closest one reached out for Theo, its clay fingers brushing the lapel of his coat, he grabbed it with his crystal arm and threw it backwards, sending it clattering into its cohorts like come insane version of bowling. While he had the chance, Theo slammed his crystal fist into the cliff face, sending deep cracks cascading up its surface. Windows shattered as the cracks crept slowly upwards, parting brickwork and stone as they shot upwards; the scythe quivered slightly, then tilted forward and began to fall; spinning gracefully through the air before it slammed into the unsuspecting body of one of the creatures near Theo, pinning it to the ground with its blade like some form of lab subject.

Theo chuckled to himself,

"Well that was lucky" However he had little time to savour his victory as another creature was moving towards him, its blade like arm raised, preparing to cut him down. Theo grabbed the handle of the scythe and pulled it upwards, dislodging it from the mangled corpse; he spun it in his hand, felling the enchantments causing it to feel as light as thin air in his hands. He ceased his spinning and looked at the creatures that surrounded him; a sudden tension gripped everyone, an uneasy solace that seemed to cling to them all, demon or nephilim. Theo lowered the scythe into one hand, whist he raised the other, with a grin, he beckoned them.

All hell broke loose. The creatures swarmed down upon him all intent on ripping him to shreds; Theo rolled under the flying body of one of the creatures before grabbing his dodged opponent's head with his crystal hand, the creature let out a grotesque hissing noise, trashing its blade around trying to catch him. Instead, Theo used this berserk flailing to his advantage, he spun in a circle causing the creature to attack his comrades instead, black blood splattered onto Theo's face and coat, but he didn't care, the adrenaline that was now pumping through his veins made him oblivious to the everything but the violence. With a primal roar, Theo threw the creature forwards, slamming it into a group of advancing demons, knocking them over as if they were bowling pins. Theo grinned at his impressive feat, but his self-indulgence was thwarted as he saw a creature hurl himself at him from the corner of his eye, Theo span around and lifted the handle of the scythe so that he blocked the incoming strike, causing the purgotorian to stumble backwards as its blade bounced off the handle.

With this chance, Theo kicked out at the creatures leg, aiming for where he presumed its knee was; the creature let out a painful scream and crumpled, its blade screeching down the handle of Theo's scythe. Theo kicked its mangled corpse backward and wheeled around, spinning the scythe as he did so; the blade sliced an oncoming creature, turning it into little more than a thick, black soup; he spat the blood out of his mouth as he continued on his rampage, the adrenaline in his blood blanking him out to the rest of the world. He jumped into the air, tucking up his legs to avoid the blade of a purgotorian. Before he fell downwards, slamming his crystal fist into the skull of the creature. His fingers tore straight through and into the soft, warm flesh of the brain. Black blood sprayed onto the crystal arm as Theo tore through the skull and fell downwards, landing on the fallen corpse of the creature. A creature launched himself at him, but unfortunately, Theo wasn't quick enough to dodge, the think blade embedded itself into his shoulder, tearing flesh and grating bone as it sank further and further into him.

Theo screamed as blood, thick and dark, poured out of the wound; his breath became ragged and stilted as more of his blood flowed out of him. The scythe fell from his hand and clattered to the floor, its blade soon embellished with his blood; another demonic blade slammed into Theo's stomach, allowing more blood to spill down his coat. Theo's eyes bulged as he surrendered himself to the blades of the demons; more and more of the blades slammed into his body, expelling more of his blood out into the open air. Theo felt his life force beginning to slip away, but, as his grip began to fail, a thought occurred to him; he was in Purgatory, where would his soul go? Further down into the layers of the abyss? Or would he just suffer? Unable to die.

He started to feel something ignite inside him, a strange possession that soon took him over, a new power that coated his soul. He felt all traces of pain leave him along with the eventual greying of his vision; he straightened up, his previous peril and pain all but forgotten; his eyes became engulfed in a strange bright light that turned his iris and pupils into glowing beacons of light. He began to rise into the air, his head tossed back to gaze at the sky, his arms spread like some divine prophet, the purgotorians let loose yells of confusion as their blades fell from Theo, leaving deep crevasses of flash and blood in Theo's body. Suddenly, light steamed from Theo's body, blinding all around him as if he was the centre of the sun itself. Theo felt two sharp pains from his shoulder blades followed by warmth that echoed through his body; a pair of wings sprouted from his body, one black and leathery, the other being soft, white and feathery, almost as if he excepted the true mantle of what he was, that this was his true visage. He began to fall gracefully down, his eyes now glowing with the raw energy that he had released, which had turned the veins that covered his body from black to a blinding white.

As his boots touched the floor, the purgotorians seemed to awaken from their trance, and moved in, their blades still dripping with Theo's blood, from the wounds that now began to heal at an insane rate. Theo could hear, behind the screams of the damned creatures, another noise that seemed to bring him solace; the thumping of the blood in his ears.

A sign he was still alive inside.

Out of the corner of his eye, Theo saw the flash of a blade, he spun round and quickly and grabbed the blade with his right hand, with a grip so formidable, he bent and distorted the very metal from which they were made. Even though the creature had no face, Theo could almost sense the fear coming off it; Theo smiled and ripped the arm off the creature in one fell swoop, before savagely swooping the blade round and slicing the creature in half, causing blood to spurt from what remained of the body. As their comrade fell, the other abominations moved in, their instruments of death raised; but this time, Theo felt different, omnipotent and stalwart. He ducked under the first swipe, felling the air from the blade ruffle his quills; with a spin of the scythe above him, he sliced the creature in two, raining thick black blood down upon his back.

From his crouched position on the ground, he threw his free palm forward, causing dark tendrils to burst forth from the ground around him, ripping and tearing apart the legs of the demons. It seemed as if he wasn't in control of his body, as he jumped upward, dodging a swipe from the purgotorian, before he began to fall slowly , head first, spinning the scythe in his hands bellow him, cutting apart the demons below him before he landed in the sludge that was the little of them that remained. The remaining creatures moved in, blades raised. With a yell of adrenaline fuelled rage, Theo raised his crystal fist before slamming it down on the floor expecting it to cause some blast of demonic energy that would incapacitate his foes, but instead, the floor itself shattered and before he knew what was happening, he was falling down into the next layer of hell that awaited.

**A/N: I apologise greatly for the massive delay, I have multiple things to deal with, but I've now gone back to focus on this. So, sorry for the long wait. **


	13. The Death of Resistance

**A/N: Sorry for the massive delays, but I've been busy with work and such, anyway, we're not far from the end. So let's continue.**

Shadow buried his head into the high collar of his jacket as a fresh burst of vile wind tore across the back alley. His exhaled, letting out a fog of warm air which was caught on the wind and carried off into the night. He kept his head down, leaning back against the high brick wall which made up one half of the tight alley; he had to wait for the optimum target. He loitered in the entrance to the alley, dressed entirely in black, hood up and head down so that he didn't attract attention; on the main road which lay perpendicular to his position, rush hour traffic streamed through, their roofs shining form the rain that had fallen mere minutes ago. In his ear, he had an earpiece which suddenly squawked into life as Shadow huddled himself against the cold.

"Shadow? Can you see us, we're now in position"

Shadow glanced round at the plethora of dimly lit vehicles that were now crammed into the road, his cold, red eyes surveying the daily chaos until he located an old, rusting van, parked in an abandoned and derelict housing estate opposite. Shadow grinned,

"Yeah, I see you Blaze. Nice choice of location by the way",

Blaze chuckled "Skull's choice, he said it would be- hang on, I'll put you on". There was the sound of movement and muffled voices as the head set was handed over, before Shadow was graced by Skull's voice,

"It would be less suspicious; we fit in with the whole atmosphere of the place. After all we did steal the van from one of the places hit by the riots, just like what this place is"

Shadow nodded even though they couldn't directly acknowledge it,

"I can tell." He turned his head and looked down the alley to what they had travelled here to see. At the end of the alley was a neon-lit set of double doors, flanked by two bouncers dressed in suits, each armed with a clipboard; a queue of people streamed from the doors, stretching down an alley that was out of Shadow's sight. Above the door was advertised the name of the club in glowing neon letters; _Purgatory_.

Shadow turned back to face the ruins of the estate opposite,

"Right, I'm going in"

"And how exactly are you going to do that?" Blaze asked, a tone of sternness in her voice. Shadow grinned,

"I've took down empires, entire armies and gods among other things, do you think that one club will stop me?". Blaze's tone went from ascetic to anxious and Shadow was reminded of a mother warning their child as they went out to play,

"But Shadow, we're going up against people, not gods or empires. People are more dangerous and powerful than either of those. Bear in mind that it's people that are voting for Rapture and who are excelling the strength of the movement." After a long pause, she sighed and continued "Just…be careful".

"I always am" Shadow muttered before switching off the earpiece. He turned to face the neon sign, before briskly pulling the black hood further over his head, masking his face completely. With trepidation, he began to walk towards the nightclub, his head still down or order to make himself less conspicuous to both the crowd and the bouncers who were now mere metres away. The larger of the two bouncers looked up and noticed Shadow walking slowly toward them; he chuckled to himself before calling out to him,

"Sorry man, you're against the dress code"

Shadow ignored him and kept moving, his hands balling into fists. It was the other bouncers turn to call out,

"You fucking deaf? You _can't_ come in"

Shadow, unperturbed, kept moving towards the doorway until he was in between the two bouncers. Shadow felt a palm on his chest, pushing him back; he obliged and looked at the two bouncers leering over him, his red eyes glowing from the neon that seemed to surround the whole alley. The bouncer with the hand on his chest grinned, before saying in a mock tone,

"Now run along sunshine, back to your mommy"

His partner laughed at this remark,

"Yeah, get lost!"

A hush fell over the alley; everyone was silent, all watching the confrontation before them; for a few seconds, now sound was heard apart from the distant thumping of music and the whistling of the wind. Shadow smirked to himself before grabbing the bouncers hand in a vice-like grip, then with a savage twist, he snapped the bouncer's wrist. The bouncer let out a blood-curdling scream, as he cradled his mutilated wrist, his companion lunged at Shadow, he rolled under his big, clumsy punch and discharged a feral punch to the bouncer's abdomen. The bouncers fell to his knees, half-winded; giving Shadow the opportunity he needed, he grabbed the bouncers head and slammed it into the brickwork with a sickening crunch, smearing blood onto its ancient bricks. Shadow relinquished his grip upon the mangled skull of the bouncer causing is body to slump silently to the pavement.

The other bouncer, moved towards Shadow, struggling against the pain of his snapped wrist; with one fell swoop, Shadow grabbed the bouncers head and twisted, breaking his neck. The man crashed to the ground to be met with the gasps of the crowd lining up for the club itself; Shadow looked at the crowd and snarled, showing his teeth shining in the light,

"If anyone calls the police, you're all dead"

With one final scathing look at the crowd, Shadow pulled open the door to the club and entered. A staircase coated with a ruby red carpet lead downwards into the club, the thumping music getting louder and louder as he descended; gingerly he reached into the waistband of his trousers and slowly pulled out a revolver and flicking the safety off. Even though the armistice was in effect, he had still managed to obtain one thanks to his contacts in the smuggling underworld.

Mark seemed to have taken every expense to make the club the very analogue of grandeur and transcendence; great canvases, few of which Shadow recognised, hung in great gold and silver frames on the walls, at intervals vast chandeliers illuminated the environment, the diffracted rainbow of colours scattered around it like rubble from a blast. The whole of the stairwell was a deep red in hue, almost as if he was following a trail of blood downwards into the lair of some ferocious monster, it was impossible to tell how long the stairwell was, it stretched downwards in an almost infinite decent as if it lead to the centre of Mobius itself, however despite the reputation of the club and the huge amount of people waiting outside for entry, the stairway was deserted apart from him.

Shadow then felt something strange, a bitter taste in the air, its texture becoming more thickened and obese; he staggered sideways and caught himself on the wall, he held himself there for a second trying to catch his breath in the sudden muskiness of his environment, his focus shifted rapidly, making his vision deluded and false, his eyes wandered to a painting on the wall, which made his jump back in fright. Where seconds before there had been a beautiful portrait of a young woman was a strange façade of a woman, her eyes dark and blackened and dripping blood, her face curled into a cruel smile. Shadow looked around to see that all the other portraits had similar altercations to this one.

With each heartbeat, his vision throbbed; he turned around only to find an oppressive black darkness surging towards him from above. He scrambled around and began to run downwards, not caring that he had abandoned his stealthy approach but instead focusing on finding Mark and eliminating him.

Skull took off the headphones and swivelled his chair to face Blaze, who was still busy typing on the keyboard,

"I just don't get it"

Blaze turned to him, eyebrow raised, her eyes glowing green from the display,

"What don't you get?"

Skull turned back to his computer and typed away hurriedly, his fingers flying over the keys at the rate of a pianist until he brought up a file with Mark's profile. Blaze broke away from her own screen and turned her chair to look at Skulls screen.

"So Theo defeats him and GUN got hold of him and he's taken to hospital; then one week later all charges against him are dropped. Well firstly who dropped them?"

Blaze shrugged, the solution just as unclear to her as it was to him.

"I have no idea, all I know is that one minute everything was normal at GUN, then I was been thrown out of my bed and by things being destroyed by the people who had been my friends."

Skull nodded,

"Same here. Bastards even ripped up my porn magazines" Blaze flushed scarlet but said nothing.

"Anyway, Mark began buying businesses, specifically around the areas of Station Square and New Mobotropolis, right before all those weird symbols came into play. And then on top of everything else, he becomes one of the main figures of the Rapture movement which means he's virtually untouchable."

"Unless he's off his guard." Skull finished, smiling "This could work if we play our cards right".

"But if this goes wrong, they'll be nothing stopping Rapture from…" Blaze paused, thinking methodically "What do they want anyway?"

"Whatever it is, it can't be good" Skull stated, after a couple of seconds he turned to Blaze once more, "You hungry?"

"Kinda" Blaze admitted,

"Well thankfully, that's one thing I _can_ solve" Skull stated in an almost triumphant fashion, he pushed his chair out a couple of inches and pulled a white polyethene bag out from underneath his desk. He reached inside and pulled out a long closed polystyrene tub and with a flourish, tossed it over to place who fumblingly caught it; upon opening it, Blazes' expression fell,

"Chips? Again?" She looked up at Skull with a distasteful look, "Couldn't have you got something different, like, oh I don't know…fruit?".

Skull looked up from his own portion, with a look of forged confusion,

"Nope, I bought the food so I decided what we got" Skull picked a gravy-drenched chip up from the tub and placed it in his mouth, "My god! This is incredible! It's like I'm having an orgasm in my mouth!".

Blaze looked at him puzzled, "They're just chips"

Skull waved his finger in what might have looked like a patronising fashion,

"Well, mine have gravy. Who would have thought that chips and gravy would be so…so…heavenly"

Blaze turned back to her screen and placed her uneaten portion of chips next to her, unlike Skull, she was entirely focused on the job at hand and she wasn't willing for some unhealthy snack to put her off.

"Then a couple of weeks ago, Mark bought an abandoned natural gas refinery plant, but why? The place is virtually unusable"

"I'm sorry, what?" Skull said, distracted from his empyrean paradise, Blaze gave him a scoulding look before turning back to the computer,

"It was abandoned around 15 years ago after an extensive vein of Triophetamine was found in the natural gas itself"

"Triophetamine? That's a nerve drug isn't it?"

Blaze tapped a few keys and brought up another file, detailed with the illustration of the molecular structure of the compound.

"It's a strong deliriant, chemical formula of C54 H26NO, it naturally occurs in long veins all over the planet, to make things worse, it's a colourless, odourless and tasteless gas, it has instant effects causing hallucinations, lack of motor control and delirium." Blaze turned to Skull and finally remarked "And guess what, it kills you within an hour if you're in a constant atmosphere of it"

Blaze mimed an explosion in front of her chest,

"Heart failure, you get literally _scared_ to death"

"Scared to death, huh? What's so scary that it scares you to death?"

Blaze sighed then pointed at Skull,

"You know what you fear the most so your mind with conjure it, and there's only a certain amount your body can take" .

"Well that's lovely" Skull concluded, sarcastically "But what does he want with a hallucinogenic gas?". Blaze frowned and typed once again,

"I have no idea but he did order extension pipes to be built from the refinery plant to multiple locations, all around here. And what's even weirder is that the workmen didn't place filters in the pipes themselves, so" she paused, realisation blooming on her face "We need to get Shadow out of there".

"Why? What is it?" Skull said in a hurried tone.

"One of those pipes" Blaze breathed "Leads straight into the basement of the club Shadow just went in" She moved suddenly to her feet and moved for the double doors at the back of the van, clambering over the wires and leads that were strewn all over the floor. Skull grabbed her arm quickly,

"I don't understand, it doesn't make any sense"

"Does it need to make sense?" Blaze argued trying to tug her arm out of his grip "Shadow's in danger".

"Blaze, you're not thinking straight" Skull said calmly, his eyes trying to make contact with Blaze's own "Why would Mark pump that gas into his own club? He'd be putting himself in danger, so why?"

"That is an excellent question" a mysterious voice said over the monitors, Blaze and Skull turned to see Mark on every monitor around the whole room, his cruel smiled copied all around them.

"Why would I do such a thing?" he asked himself in a mock tone, placing his chin on his hand in mock deep thought "What do you think, Blaze?"

Blaze blinked, before slowly asking in astonishment, "How are you-"

"Even talking to you?" Mark interrupted before adopting an aura of amusement and pride "Simple. I found that something had a communications link in this area that wasn't my own. So I placed a block on all outbound signals on the link itself them merely hijacked the input signal, easy peasy." He pointed a finger at them suddenly "Oh, by the way, I wouldn't try to save your lovely little Shadow, he'll be dead in about…" he checked an imaginary watch "Two minutes".

"And _how_ exactly are you going to stop us from leaving the van?" Skull asked, cockily; Mark smiled, unperturbed, his eyes looking at them both with a malicious intent. Blaze's heart rose slightly at the immediate lack of an answer. Maybe he had no way of stopping them? But her hope was soon relinquished from her when he finally spoke,

"There's four IED's attached to the bottom of your van, each has hair-width triggers, and those triggers are attached to all the escape routes, the back doors, the front door, even all the windows. One false move and BOOM!"

"How do we know you're not lying?" Skull asked aggressively, Mark smiled and for a moment his eyes looked completely red.

"Why would I lie about this?" Mark asked, his cruel and unsympathetic smile growing slightly, "Like I said barely ten seconds ago, one false move and you can say goodbye to your limbs".

"What are you trying to accomplish?" Blaze asked "The movements of Rapture, your purchases of properties of land and the armistice. What's it all for?".

"Well, let me ask you this in return" Mark said "Did Theo ever tell you what he is?"

"You didn't answer my question" Blaze stated angrily, Skull grabbed her arm making her turn to him,

"Wait"

"What is it?" Blaze asked impatiently, Skull didn't look at her, his eyes remained fixed in perpetuum, on the display,

"He's offering us an answer for an answer" Blaze looked back at the display, Mark gestured to her,

"Ladies first, answer my question"

Blaze seemed to almost puff herself up in pride before responding to Mark,

"He did actually; he told me he's part angel and part demon" Mark's smile intensified,

"And did it even occur to you _how_ that could be possible? Mephiles wasn't exactly Romeo, you know." Blaze opened her mouth to respond but words escaped her "There is a lot more to Theo's past than you might think. That's where we come in"

"What do you mean?" Blaze said through gritted teeth "Stop speaking in riddles". Mark frowned, then waved his hand as if he was brushing Blazes comment away,

"Theo is part of a destiny much older and more significant than any of us; even us demons"

Skull moved closer to the nearest monitor so he commanded centre stage.

"You're not a demon though" Mark grinned and interrupted,

"Ah, but it doesn't mean that this…" he looked down at himself "…Meatsuit, isn't _possessed _by a demon".

"So if your possessed…how many others are?" Blaze asked, Mark laughed,

"Millions upon millions, we are mobilised and thanks to Rapture, there is nothing that can stop us".

"My god" Skull said, Blaze turned to him with concern in her eyes "Every symbol that's appeared in each city wasn't a code. It was a gateway to the demon world, demons have been flooding into this world for months."

"Well you're wrong. We'll stop you!" Blaze retaliated, her eyes flaring with a rebellious fire. Mark sniggered, covering his mouth with his hand before bursting into laughter, he laughed long and hard before replying.

"You ignorant little girl. You sound like a hero from a cheesy children's cartoon. You have _no_ idea how far this plan extends" He smiled before dropping his aura of cynicism "So I'd love to stay and chat but I have an appointment with your friend, as for you" he pulled out a detonator from off screen and waved it in front of them "It's time for you to get barbequed".

"Wait no!" Skull yelled moving forward quickly, but their time was up. Mark pressed the detonator, the IED's detonated, and the van was blown to smithereens, a fireball punched upwards into the sky and the flaming carcass of the van jumped slightly from the blast before crashing back to the ground. Cars on the road nearby swerved as their drivers were shocked by the explosion, causing a crescendo of tire squeaks to sound.

But inside the club, in an earthbound hell, Shadow had no idea that two of his friends had just perished, his primary concerns were still with his current predicament. His vision throbbed with each painful step that he took, he felt blood beginning to trickle down from his eyes but he didn't care, his mind was so absorbed and consumed by fear that any other signal did not register on any level. Through his eyes, each portrait was screaming, their eyes flowing with a black liquid, each face contorted with an inhuman style. He didn't know how long he had been wondering downwards, it could have been a minute or a year, the fear he felt seemed eternal.

There was a creaking noise behind him, engulfed by his psychosis; he wheeled around to see Mark stepping out from a doorway to his right. His eyes were gone too, replaced by black holes dripping with a black liquid, when he spoke his voice was distorted and alien,

"My, my, Looks like the gas was just as strong as Fitzroy promised"

Shadow tried to respond but all that came out of him was a dry rasp.

"You. All of you, you've failed. You cannot stop us now" He looked at Shadow in hopes of receiving an answer, but was only to be greeted by a blood filled cough "Once this gas is released from every vent we can get our hands on, all of Mobius will buckle before our master; of course the gas will not be as concentrated, thanks to the open air, but at least it means that millions will live in fear or days, maybe even weeks" Shadow crumpled down to his knees, coughing up blood all over the ruby red carpet, but managing to say one word,

"H-H-How?"

"How am I breathing in this without going mental like you? You can't scare the living incarnation of fear with a gas, especially when the meatsuit is possessed by one." Mark stood to his full height and looked around "Y'know that there are vast quantities of the gas all over the world, and Rapture has moved into every city where there is a reserve of it underneath the crust, and in…" He checked his watch "Three hours, a signal will be dispatched to start the takeover, the gas will be released and the demons festering away silently within the humans and the mobians will awaken and wreak havoc, giving our master the opportunity to return. But anyway back to the matter at hand".

Mark crouched down and held his hand out "Give me your gun". Without will, Shadows hand slowly moved towards Marks as if the gas was bending him to his will, in mere seconds, he had dropped the revolver into Marks hand. Mark straightened up and pointed it at Shadows head, Shadow looked up at him, like a dog to its master, his eyes flowing with blood but still allowing the fear to be clearly seen within them.

"Goodbye" Mark said, he looked into Shadows eyes one last time and pulled the trigger.


End file.
